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OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 


OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 


BY 

J.    BRIERLEY,   B.A. 

(  "J.  B.") 

Author  oj  "  Religiofi  and  Experience ''  "  The  Common  Li/e"  "  The  Eternal  ReUgion, 
"  Studies  oj  the  Soul"  "  Ourselves  and  the  Universe"  &'c.,  &'c. 


"  The  poet  says,  '  Dear  City  of  Cecrops  !* 
And  wilt  not  thou  say,  'Dear  City  of  God'?" 

—Marcus  Aurelius. 


Beto  fork 
THOMAS    WHITTAKER,    2    &   3   BIBLE    HOUSE 


Contents 


Part  I.— THEOLOGICAL 

CHAPTER 

I. — Our  Doctrine  of  Man   . 
II. — Our  Doctrine  of  God 
III. — The  Incarnation 
IV. — The  Gospels  and  Miracle   . 
V. — Our  Doctrine  of  Sin     . 
VI. — The  Doctrine  of  Sacrifice 
VII.— On  Being  Saved 
VIII.— Theology's  Hidden  Factors 
IX.— The  Quality  of  Belief  . 
X. — Of  Religious  Transition 
XI.— The  Church's  Great  Moment 


PAGE 

9 
17 
26 
36 
50 
64 
72 
81 
89 
97 
106 


Part  II SOCIAL 


XII.— The  Social  Pressure      . 
XIII. — Our  Unprotected  Classes 
XIV. — The  State  and  Happiness 
XV.— The  Ethics  of  Ownership 
XVI.— The  Gospel  of  Work    . 
XVII.— Our  Debt  to  Life    . 
XVIII.— The  Doctrine  of  Limit. 
XIX. — Of  False  Independence 
XX.— The  Undefined  Moralities 


117 
125 
134 
143 
151 
160 
168 
176 
184 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


Part  III.— PERSONAL 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

XXI.- 

— The  Gift  of  a  Day 

.     195 

XXII.- 

—Our  Personal  Fortunes 

203 

XXTII.- 

—Friends  and  Friendship 

.     211 

XXIV.- 

—On  Being  There       . 

219 

XXV.- 

—The  Mind's  Adjustments 

.     227 

XXVI. 

—Of  the  Incomplete  . 

236 

XXVII.- 

—Life's  Appeal 

.     244 

XXVIII.- 

—The  Great  and  the  Small  . 

252 

XXIX. 

—Our  Holy  Places 

.     260 

XXX. 

—Renewals        .... 

269 

XXXI.- 

-On  Being  111       . 

.     278 

XXXIL- 

—Character  and  Reputation 

286 

XXXIII.- 

—Old  and  New 

.     294 

XXXIV.- 

—Remainders  .... 

302 

Our  City  of  God 


INTRODUCTION 

When  Augustine,  amid  the  fast  approaching 
dissolution  of  the  Empire,  with  the  Vandals  already 
in  his  native  Africa,  wrote  the  "  De  Civitate  Dei," 
he  worked  upon  a  conception  which  perhaps  strikes 
us  most  for  its  contrast  with  our  own.  With  the 
world,  as  it  seemed,  going  to  pieces  around  him, 
he  looked  for  consolation  in  the  thought  of  a  Church, 
a  body  of  elect  souls  who,  and  who  alone,  would 
be  saved  from  this  wreck  of  all  that  was  visible. 

He  makes  an  absolute  dichotomy,  to  us  terrible 
in  its  completeness,  of  the  human  race.  On  one 
side  are  the  elect,  found  in  all  the  six  periods  into 
which  he  divides  world-history,  from  the  Creation 
to  the  Second  Advent.  With  the  saints  are  included 
the  elect  angels,  and  these  together  make  up  the 
eternal  kingdom,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  the 
abiding  City  of  God.  The  host  outside  are  a 
massa  perditioniSj  whose  very  virtues  are  splendida 
vitia,  and  whose  doom  is  the  eternal  fire.  Within 
Christendom  the  Cathohc  Church  was  to  rule  the 
State,  the  function  of  the  latter  being  that  of  hand- 


2  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

maid  and  servitor.  Under  this  regime  the  secular 
arm  was  to  use  compulsion  against  heretics  and 
schismatics.  Organised  Catholicism  was  the  sole 
depository  of  power.  That  is  the  world-picture 
according  to  Augustine. 

It  is  one  in  which  the  brilliant  light  at  the  centre 
serves  only  to  make  more  appalhng  the  blackness 
of  darkness  that  surrounds  it.  The  modern  mind 
cannot  enjoy  the  splendours  of  this  "  City  "  for 
thinking  of  the  too  capacious  dungeons  beneath.  A 
system  which  shuts  out  the  greater  half  of  the 
human  race  from  any  share  in  the  good  that  is 
going,  which  instead  hands  them  over  to  a  pre- 
destinated ruin,  has  become  for  us  plainly  impossible. 
The  fact  is,  Augustine  brought  too  much  of  his 
early  Manichaeanism  with  him  into  Christianity. 
His  "  City  of  God  "  is  too  manifestly  overtopped 
by  the  opposing  "  City  of  the  Devil." 

Yet  with  all  its  defects,  what  great  and  eternally 
true  things  are  there  in  his  conception  !  The  view 
of  world-history  as  the  continuous  unfolding  of  a 
Divine  purpose  ;  of  world-policies,  moralities,  and 
economies  as  being  rooted  finally  in  spiritual 
principles  ;  of  the  State  as  subordinate  to  an  invisible 
power  that  is  higher  than  itself — does  not  all  this 
remain  to  us  not  only  august  and  venerable,  but 
as  essentially  valid  ?  Augustinianism  needs  and 
has  received  in  our  time  rigorous  revision.  But 
its  root  idea  holds.  It  is  the  only  one  that  covers 
humanity  ;  that  accounts  for  its  history,  and  gives 
to  its  institutions  and  government  their  true  basis. 

In  the  present  volume  I  have  tried  to  follow  this 
conception.     But  I  have  given  to  it  the  turn  which 


INTRODUCTION  3 

the  modern  consciousness  demands.  We  see  to- 
day truly  a  "  City  of  God,"  but  one  built  on  broader 
foundations  and  with  a  mightier  population  than 
the  one  we  read  of  in  the  African  Father.  Our 
Civitas  Dei  is  Humanity  itself.  But  not  humanity 
alone.  For  us,  as  for  Augustine,  it  is  always  man 
and  God  ;  humanity  and  the  Divine  Power  that  is 
forming  humanity.  With  us  as  mth  him  the 
ultimate  solutions  are  religious.  "  It  is  surprising," 
exclaims  Proudhon,  "  how  at  the  bottom  of  our 
politics  we  always  find  theology  !  "  That  is  and 
will  be  so.  For  theology,  properly  conceived, 
is  not  a  shut-up  compartment  of  things,  but  an 
all-embracing  scheme,  a  true  scientia  scientiarum, 
holding  in  its  scope  all  that  belongs  to  the  life  of 
nations  and  of  men. 

That  is  the  view  offered  in  these  pages.  They 
begin  with  some  chapters  of  definite  theological 
statement ;  with  a  doctrine  of  God,  of  man,  of 
Christ,  of  salvation,  and  allied  topics.  I  have  put 
these  matters  first,  because  in  our  time  and  country 
no  complete  scheme  of  living  can  dispense  with 
some  convictions  about  them.  They  form  part 
of  the  ethical  atmosphere  which  we  breathe,  and 
every  member  of  the  community,  whatever  his 
standpoint,  must  have  his  view  of  them.  It  will 
be  seen  that  the  themes  treated  of  in  this  section 
bear  special  reference  to  controversies  which  are  at 
the  present  time  agitating  our  religious  life.  But 
the  treatment  has  been  not  so  much  controversial 
as  expository.  It  is  not  by  calUng  each  other 
names,  but  by  getting  at  facts  and  the  right  deduc- 
tions from  them  that  we  may  hope  to  reach  any 


4  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

sure  ground  or  any  clear  light  on  these  high  matters. 
What  we  want  is  not  so  much  a  New^  Theology  as  a 
True  Theology  ;  and  the  progress  towards  it  can  only 
be  in  proportion  as  men  seek  and  speak,  not  in 
the  interests  of  this  or  that  party,  but  solely  that 
they  may  find  and  utter  the  thing  which  convinces 
their  own  mind  and  satisfies  their  own  soul. 

But,  as  our  age  is  coming  to  see,  in  intimate 
alliance  with  these  ultimate  themes,  inseparable 
from  them  in  any  conception  of  the  world  as  a 
"  City  of  God,"  are  questions  which  have  been 
left  too  long  as  the  exclusive  domain  of  the  economist 
and  the  party  politician.  The  Church,  by  its 
neglect  of  the  social  problem,  has  lost  much  of  its 
position  as  a  leader  and  guide  of  humanity.  It 
will  only  regain  it  by  recognising  this  question,  and 
the  solution  of  it,  as  a  part  of  its  evangel,  as  having 
their  roots  finally  in  the  same  spiritual  principles 
as  those  which  govern  its  formal  theology.  Our 
doctrine  of  society,  as  much  as  our  doctrine  of  sin 
or  salvation,  enters  into  any  true  scheme  of  living. 
What  is  dawning  upon  the  best  religious  minds  is 
that  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  is  not  for  ever  to 
remain  in  the  clouds.  It  is  to  be  brought  to  earth 
and  made  visible  to  all  men.  We  are  far  enough 
from  this  yet,  and  the  distance  between  the  ideal 
and  its  fulfilment  measures  the  work  which  it  is 
now  for  the  Church  to  aid  in  accomphshing.  The 
*'  City "  will  contain  no  slums.  Its  government 
will  have  found  and  put  into  practice  the  true 
doctrine  of  property,  of  labour,  of  dependence  and 
independence.  It  will  have  created  the  system 
which    permits    the    fullest    development    of    the 


INTRODUCTION  6 

individual  life  without  violating  the  communal 
principles  which  hold  society  together.  In  the 
chapters  devoted  to  this  subject  I  have  accordingly 
endeavoured  to  outline  the  main  ideas  which  should 
govern  our  treatment  of  it.  In  "  The  Gospel  of 
Work,"  "The  Unprotected  Classes,"  "The  State 
and  Happiness,"  "  Independence,"  and  alHed  topics 
I  have  sought  the  Christian  solution  of  some  of 
the  social  questions  which  press  most  closely  upon 
us  to-day. 

After  the  social,  the  personal.  For,  as  most  of 
us  discover  sooner  or  later,  it  is  this  which  in  the 
long  run  counts  most.  The  best  social  arrangements 
that  human  wit  can  arrive  at  enter  only  to  a  most 
limited  degree  into  the  business  of  high  and  happy 
Uving.  When  our  "  City  "  is  as  healthy,  wealthy, 
and  beautiful  as  a  perfect  arrangement  can  make 
it,  the  problem  of  each  life  in  it,  of  its  happiness  or 
unhappiness,  has  received  only  the  beginnings  of 
an  answer.  For  us  everything  begins  and  every- 
thing ends  with  the  personal.  Our  third  division 
is  accordingly  occupied  with  the  varying  sides  of 
our  separate  and  private  problem.  That  is  an 
exhaustless  theme,  and  for  the  reason  that  under 
every  conceivable  future  condition  of  our  world 
the  individual  possibilities  will  be  infinite  in  their 
variety,  in  their  range  of  well-  or  ill-being.  The 
final  thing  here  is  our  own  character.  As  individuals 
we  shall  never  know  ourselves  as  of  the  "  City  of 
God  "  until  we  have  the  mind  and  disposition  which 
belong  to  its  citizenship. 

J.  B. 
London,  1907. 


Part  I 
THEOLOGICAL 


Our   Doctrine  of  Man 

The  controversies  which  agitate  the  modern 
Church  go  a  long  way  down.  The  world  has  sud- 
denly waked  to  the  fact  that  not  surface  matters, 
but  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  religious 
belief  are  in  question.  Ultimately  we  find  that 
all  these  centre  in  our  doctrine  of  man.  The  whole 
of  theology  is  there.  What  we  think  of  God,  of 
Christ,  of  sin,  of  Church,  of  life  beyond,  comes  back 
finally  to  what  we  think  of  man.  Greek  philosophy 
early  recognised  this,  and  has  put  it  for  us  in  its 
own  incisive  way.  There  was  a  kind  of  Hegelian 
evolution  in  its  thought  here.  Said  Protagoras, 
"  Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things."  "No," 
answered  Plato,  "  God,  the  Divine  Mind,  is  the 
measure  of  all  things."  Comes  Aristotle,  still  later, 
with  the  thought  that  combines  and  reconciles  the 
two  :  "It  is  the  perfect  man,  in  whom  God's 
thought  is  clear,  who  is  the  measure  of  all  things." 
And,  so  far  as  the  ultimate  truth  of  things  can 
ever  be  a  human  possession,  this  Aristotelian  dictum 
concerning  it  seems  likely  to  be  the  final  one. 

If  theology  to-day  is  to  restudy  its  positions  it 
cannot  do  better  than  begin  with  man.  ^For  here 


10  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

at  least  is  a  subject  on  which  we  do  know  some- 
thing. It  is  the  reproach  against  religious  thought 
that  it  occupies  itself  so  much  with  questions  to 
which  it  has  no  satisfying  answers.  But  man  at 
least  is  knowable.  If  we  are  sure  of  anything,  we 
are  sure  of  ourselves.  Here,  at  any  rate,  we  can 
bring  dogma  to  a  test.  We  have  not  only  our 
own  mind  and  its  verdicts  to  go  upon,  but  an 
enormous  accumulation  of  facts  about  other  minds. 
This,  which  was  true  of  earlier  times,  is  especially 
true  of  ours.  There  never  was  an  age  so  equipped 
for  a  study  of  humanity.  In  the  light  of  modern 
knowledge  we  can  no  more  accept  unquestioned 
the  earher  verdicts  on  this  subject  than  we  could 
accept  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy.  Of  man's  history 
as  an  animal  and  as  a  soul ;  of  his  physiology  and 
his  psychology  ;  of  the  way  in  which  his  behefs, 
his  first  theologies  came  to  him  ;  of  the  laws  which 
have  governed  the  development  of  his  mind,  in 
the  successive  stages  of  his  progress  ;  of  his  ethical 
history,  the  story  of  his  falls,  his  recoveries,  his 
crimes,  his  virtues  ;  of  the  value  and  action  in 
him  of  the  spiritual  faculty,  and  the  results  offered 
by  his  world-wide  and  age-long  rehgious  experiences 
— in  all  these  and  other  directions  we  have  such  a 
science  of  man  as  no  past  age  could  pretend  to. 
And  to  that  science  our  theology  is  bound  to  conform 
itself. 

If  we  now  examine  these  new  facts  for  what 
they  yield  us  of  doctrine,  the  first  conviction  they 
force  upon  us  is  that  theology,  instead  of  having 
reached  a  finahty,  is  as  yet  only  at  its  beginning. 
Our   discoveries    have    so   far   only   increased    the 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN  11 

puzzle  of  life.  Its  curve  is  so  immeasurably  greater 
than  we  had  imagined.  Up  to  now  the  most 
conspicuous  service  of  science  has  been  to  throw  into 
an  intenser  relief  the  contrarieties  of  our  existence. 
It  has  allied  us,  in  a  way  our  fathers  never  dreamed 
of,  to  the  animal  kingdom.  Here  indeed  it  offers 
nothing  to  boast  of.  On  this,  the  material  side, 
Nature  puts  us  on  a  level  with  her  flies  and  beetles. 
On  occasion  she  destroys  us  by  the  same  methods 
and  with  the  same  indifference.  In  an  earthquake 
our  value,  our  consequence  to  the  cosmos,  appears 
to  be  that  of  an  anthill.  If  life  had  no  other  side 
than  this  visible  one  our  doctrine  of  man  would  be 
indeed  a  doctrine  of  despair;  our  philosophy  "  to 
eat  and  drink,  since  to-morrow  we  die." 

But  the  facts  of  life  which  point  to  such  a  con- 
clusion are  met  by  another  set,  not  less  certain,  far 
more  august,  which  look  in  an  opposite  direction. 
These  are  the  facts  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  spiritual 
world.  That  their  argument  has  been  the  more 
cogent,  their  appeal  the  more  impressive,  appears 
in  this,  that,  spite  of  his  brusque  and  nonchalant 
treatment  by  nature,  spite  of  having  been,  in  all 
his  generations,  the  child  of  catastrophe,  man  has 
remained  a  behever,  a  cherisher  of  immortal  hopes. 
The  central  thing  about  man  is  not  that  he  can 
be  crushed  by  earthquakes  or  smothered  by  volca- 
noes. It  is  that  he  is  a  spirit,  a  thinker.  "  Man 
is  but  the  feeblest  reed  in  nature,"  says  Pascal, 
"  but  a  reed  that  thinks."  It  is  this  side  of  him 
that  appeals  even  to  Schopenhauer.  "  Against  the 
assertion  that  I  am  a  mere  modification  of  matter," 
he  observes,   "  this  must  be  insisted   on,  that  all 


12  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

exists  merely  in  my  idea."  The  thought  kingdom 
within  man  is  truly  a  wonderful  thing.  It  is  no 
accident  or  chance  product,  for  it  has  its  own 
immutable  laws,  at  work  in  all  the  myriad  minds  of 
the  race.  Closely  aUied  to  matter,  it  shows  in  a 
thousand  ways  its  independence  of  it  and  superiority 
over  it.  Shut  in  a  tiny  human  body,  it  is  big  enough 
to  hold  the  universe  and  all  its  worlds.  In  a 
second  it  can  traverse  infinity  and  eternity.  So 
imperial,  so  divine  is  this  possession  that  were  his 
prospect  annihilation  man  could  never  rank  himself 
as  other  than  a  spiritual  being.  He  w^ould  say 
with  Henry  More  : 

Yea,  though  the  soul  should  mortal  prove, 

So  be,  God's  life  but  in  me  move 

To  my  last  breath — I'm  satisfied 

A  lonesome  mortal  god  to  have  died. 

There  is  next  to  be  observed  that  man,  resting, 
as  to  one  side  of  his  being,  on  natural  laws  that 
treat  him  with  scant  respect,  founds  himself 
on  another  set  whose  operation  and  significance 
are  very  different.  One  of  these,  a  law  which 
seems  to  dominate  all  others,  is  the  law  of  progress. 
Against  that  man  is  mortal  put  this,  that  he  is 
progressive.  The  individual  dies,  but  the  race 
moves  forward.  It  is  at  this  point  that  science 
and  philosophy  meet  with  a  concordant  message  for 
theology.  They  remove  the  old  limits  from 
humanity — at  both  its  ends.  They  revise  our 
view  as  to  where  it  begins  and  where  it  will  finish. 
Evolution  has  so  far  concentrated  itself  largely 
upon  human    origins — has  shown  us  the  lowliness 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN  13 

of  our  birth.  But  it  has  another  aspect  which,  in 
the  coming  time,  will  count  for  more  than  its 
doctrine  of  origins.  Evolution  has  upward  as  well 
as  downward  impHcations,  and  it  is  here  that,  as 
we  have  said,  it  joins  philosophy  in  a  message  to 
theology.  ^  Philosophy  in  the  great  Greek  thinkers 
had  anticipated  evolution  in  its  most  important 
particular.  Aristotle,  in  his  doctrine  of  ends,  had 
taught  that  a  thing,  a  being,  could  not  be  judged 
from  its  beginning  or  its  present  appearance,  but 
only  in  its  completion,  in  the  perfect  type  toward 
which  it  reached.  You  get  no  proper  idea  of  an 
oak  by  examining  an  acorn  or  the  young  sapling. 
The  apphcation  of  this  to  humanity  is  a  much  bigger 
thing  than  an  affair  of  acorn  and  oak.  That  man 
essentially  is  not  what  he  is  now  simply,  but  all 
he  is  to  be,  is  a  truth  which  in  the  controversies  of 
the  hour  is  the  one  which  most  needs  to  be  remem- 
bered, and  the  one  most  constantly  forgotten. 

The  scientific  view  of  man  as  constantly  evolving, 
as  moving  from  lower  to  higher,  has,  on  both  its 
sides,  vital  consequence  for  theology.  On  the 
lower  side  it  touches  its  doctrine  of  sin,  on 
the  upper  its  doctrine  of  Christ.  As  to'  the 
first,  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall,  which  belongs 
to  Christian  teaching,  is  a  doctrine  of  science  and 
philosophy  as  well  as  of  the  Bible.  If  the  history 
of  our  race  is,  as  modern  thinking  affirms,  that  of 
"  an  individual  ever  growing  and  ever  learning," 
then  a  period  came  in  its  ascent  when,  as  with  a 
growing  child,  there  arose  in  it  the  capacity  of 
moral  distinction,  as  compared  with  the  earher 
stages  of  mere  animal  instinct  and  appetite.     That 


14  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

was  the  age  when  ideals  were  born  ;  it  was  the  age 
also  when  there  came  the  first  consciousness  of 
sin.  As  Paul  has  it,  "I  had  not  known  sin  but 
by  the  law."  It  was  when  this  law,  this  higher 
etliical  sense,  dawned  on  the  human  spirit  that 
actions  which  seemed  good  to  the  earlier  animal- 
hood were  now  felt  as  bad.  The  brute  "  good  " 
had  been  killed  by  the  spiritual  "  better."  The 
facts  of  evolution  join,  then,  with  the  Genesis  story 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  with  the  Pauhne  argument 
of  the  New  in  affirming  a  Fall,  a  breach  of  the  earlier 
ethical  unity,  as  coming  at  the  beginning  of  our 
spiritual  history. 

Evolution,  while  offering  this  contribution  to 
the  under  side  of  our  doctrine  of  man,  makes  a  not 
less  important  one  to  its  upper.  From  origins  it 
passes  to  developments.  After  its  journey  back- 
wards to  what  man  has  come  from,  it  compels  our 
thought  forward  to  what  he  may  grow  to.  When 
once  more  we  ask  our  question,  "  What  is  man  ?  " 
we  have  to  reaffirm  with  a  new  emphasis  our 
philosophy  of  Becoming.  Man  is  not  simply  what 
he  is,  but  all  he  may  yet  be.  And  the  prospect  along 
these  upper  ranges  of  his  nature  opens  plainly 
upon  infinity.  As  we  contemplate  his  history — the 
history  of  a  being  who  through  the  ages  more  and 
more  clearly  exhibits  himself  as  an  organ  of  the 
Eternal  Consciousness — we  are  compelled  to  an 
attitude  of  expectancy.  We  look  for  the  next 
step.  The  process  that  has  lifted  tliis  being  from 
animal  to  human;  that  has  developed  in  him  a  soul, 
that  has  filled  him  with  the  sense  of  a  spiritual 
kingdom  of  which  he  is  part,  wiU  not  stop  there. 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  MAN  15 

What  will  be  the  new  departure  ?  After  human- 
ising comes  divinising.  It  is  at  this  point  that 
Christianity  comes,  with  such  impressive  effect, 
into  the  story.  Humanity,  at  its  topmost  level, 
opens  itself  to  take  in  Christ.  The  Church,  in  all 
its  history,  led  by  a  sure  instinct,  has  stood  at  once 
for  the  humanity  and  the  divinity  of  Jesus.  As 
man  in  his  earUer  evolution  contained  in  himself 
the  vegetal  and  animal  worlds  combined  with  what 
was  higher  than  they,  so  Jesus  held  all  that  was  in 
man  with  something  more.  The  most  searching 
critics  of  modern  times  have  to  acknowledge  that 
"  something  more."  Harnack  finds  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  a  quality  that  is  unique  and 
transcendent.  Wernle  sees  in  the  language  of  the 
New  Testament  concerning  Him,  the  endeavour 
to  put  into  words  an  experience  that  was  beyond 
all  existing  categories  and  classifications.  As  Zeller 
puts  it,  "In  the  domain  of  the  inner  relations  of 
Godhood  and  humanity,  Christ  has  reached  the 
extreme  and  unsurpassable  stage  of  union."  Schleier- 
macher,  the  noble-hearted  thinker  who  combined 
in  himself  almost  in  its  perfection  the  philosophic 
temper  with  the  true  Christian  devotion,  has  put 
in  unsurpassable  language  the  truth  we  have  been 
here  striving  to  express  :  "  Christ's  work  is  a  com- 
pletion of  the  creation  of  human  nature.  In  this 
sense  of  expressing  the  perfect  consciousness  of 
God,  Jesus  is  Divine.  He  is  not  merely  exem- 
plary ;  He  is  archetypal  (iirhildlich) .  He  is  the 
manifestation  in  a  definite  Person  of  an  eternal 
Act — the  completion  for  which  all  that  went  before 
was  preparation." 


16  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

Of  a  doctrine  of  man,  as  viewed  in  the  light  of 
modern  knowledge,  this  is  necessarily  the  merest 
sketch.  But  we  stop  at  its  topmost  note.  Even 
such  a  hasty  glance  as  we  have  given  will 
be  enough  to  show  how  sure  are  the  grounds 
for  faith.  The  researches  of  science,  the  verdicts 
of  criticism,  properly  considered,  serve  only  to 
throw  into  greater  clearness  the  illimitable  expanse 
of  man's  spiritual  inheritance,  the  deep  founda- 
tions of  his  immortal  hope. 


II 
Our  Doctrine    of  Qod 

Were  there  no  man  there  would  be  no  God. 
The  statement  may  seem  startling  enough,  but  it 
is  really,  on  this  theme,  the  first  thing  we  have  to 
learn.  Do  not  let  it  be  misunderstood.  The 
Ineffable  ReaUty  that  is  in  and  behind  the  Visible 
has  been  there  from  all  eternity.  But  God,  to  us 
as  human  beings,  is  just  as  much  as  we  know  and 
can  conceive  of  that  ReaUty.  Our  manhood 
is  our  measure  of  Godhead.  It  is  a  measure 
which,  always  inadequate,  is  ever  growing,  and 
consequently  it  may  mth  reverence  be  said  that 
our  God  is  ever  growing.  When  Diderot  cries 
''Elargissez  Dieu''  he  is  speaking  to  the  fact.  It  is 
in  the  light  of  this  conception,  the  conception  that 
God  is  for  us  a  constant  growth  in  the  conscious- 
ness, that  we  understand  many  things  that  would 
otherwise  everlastingly  puzzle  us.  Rightly  handled, 
it  offers  us  the  best  of  answers  to  the  modern 
doubt. 

For  instance,  writers  like  M.  Guyau  in  France 
and  Mr.  Grant  Allen  and  others  in  England  have 
laboriously  traced  the  evolution  of  the  idea  of 
God  from  the  primitive  notions  of  savage  tribes, 

17  2 


18  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

as  though  this  were  an  mdictment.  They  show 
how  man,  in  different  stages  of  his  development, 
has  "  made  God  after  his  own  image,"  and  imagine 
apparently  that  here  is  an  anti-theistic  argument. 
Their  readers  agree  with  them  and  consider  the 
doctrine  exploded  ;  that,  as  a  French  writer  puts 
it,  "  rjiypothese  Dieu  s'eliminey  What  it  proves 
is  simply  that  the  savage  has  got  as  much  of  the 
reahty  in  him  as  he  could  hold,  and  no  more.  The 
formula  here  might  be  :  "As  much  man  as  you  are, 
so  much  of  God  can  you  conceive." 

It  is  precisely  also  from  this  standpo'nt  we  see 
the  absurdity  of  the  talk  about  Anthropomorphism, 
as  though  this  were  a  reproach  to  behef.  That  is 
an  old  story.  We  remember  the  jest  of  Xeno- 
phanes — "  that  the  lions,  if  they  could  have  pic- 
tured a  God,  would  have  pictured  him  in  fashion 
hke  a  lion  ;  the  horses  hke  a  horse,  the  oxen  Uke 
an  ox."  To-day  the  argument  is  revived  in  another 
form.  We  are  told  that  in  worshipping  God  as 
Father,  in  picturing  Him  as  loving,  chastising, 
forgiving,  redeeming,  we  are  acting  as  the  Hons  and 
the  horses  ;  simply,  that  is,  projecting  into  the 
heavens  a  magnified  image  of  ourselves.  We  might 
answer  this  with  a  tu  quoque.  For  the  most  arrant 
materialist  and  anti-theologist  is,  in  his  own  theory, 
doing  precisely  the  same  thing.  When  he  talks 
of  force,  of  motion,  of  sequences,  of  attractions 
and  repulsions,  as  explaining  the  system  of  things, 
he  is,  in  his  turn,  simply  projecting  himself.  His 
ideas  of  force,  of  causality,  of  attraction,  are,  just 
as  much  as  the  religious  idea,  derivatives  of  his 
consciousness.     But  our  answer  is  not  a  tu  quoque. 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD  ID 

It  is  that  in  realising  God  in  terms  of  our  highest 
self  we  are  doing  the  natural  and  only  possible 
thing.  This  is  as  much  of  Him  as  we  know  because 
it  is  as  much  of  Him  as  we  are.  When  we  are 
higher  He  will  be  higher  to  us.  Our  God-conscious- 
ness is,  we  repeat,  the  measure  of  our  growth. 

It  is  along  this  line  also  that  we  find  our  doctrine 
of  Divine  Incarnation.  When  Jesus  spoke  of 
losing  life  that  we  might  find  it,  the  word  was  true 
of  God  as  well  as  of  ourselves.  The  history  of 
God,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  is  a  history  of  losing  that 
He  might  find  Himself.  In  the  German  proverb 
God  sleeps  in  the  stone,  dreams  in  the  animal, 
wakes  in  the  man.  Creation  is  His  humiHation  and 
seK-emptying.  The  stone  holds  and  expresses 
all  of  Him  that  it  can  ;  the  animal  has  more,  and 
man  most  of  all.  God  emerges  into  ever  clearer 
self-expression  according  to  the  organs  of  body 
and  soul  that  are  there  for  Him.  When  Quaker 
George  Fox  said  that  "  though  he  read  of  Christ 
and  God  he  knew  them  only  from  a  hke  spirit  in 
his  own  soul,"  he  was  putting  in  his  own  way  the 
precise  truth  we  are  here  following.  What  he 
knew  of  God,  he  found,  was  God  in  him.  It  was 
thus  that  Jesus,  in  His  supreme  self -consciousness 
knowing  His  entire  oneness  with  the  Father,  spoke 
and  acted  from  that. 

It  is  from  the  same  standpoint  we  catch  the  mean- 
ing of  the  silence  and  seeming  indifference  of  God. 
Man's  incessant  cry  has  been  for  Divine  revelation. 
In  ruder  times  he  wanted  it  hot  and  hot,  a  vision 
in  flaming  heavens,  or  signs  and  wonders  on  the 
earth.     Later,   the   aspiration,   unanswered,   appa- 


20  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

rently,  has  turned  to  a  tormenting  doubt.  It  has 
been  his  astonishment  and  despair  that  the  heavens 

Make  no  disclosure 
And  the  earth  keeps  up  her  terrible  composure. 

With  the  decay  of  the  easy,  old-world  beliefs  in 
sprite  and  fairy,  in  magic  and  Avitchcraft,  in  the 
constant  play  of  the  supernatural,  man's  lonehness 
in  the  universe  has,  we  say,  grown  upon  him.  He 
looks  from  his  island  planet  to  the  waste  infinitude 
around  him  in  search  of  neighbours  and  friends, 
and  there  are  none  in  sight.     The  stars  to  him  are 

Innumerable,  pitiless,  passionless  eyes, 
Cold  fires,  yet  with  power  to  burn  and  brand 
His  nothingness  into  man. 

But  in  this  despair  man  is  forgetting  one  thing. 
It  is  that  there  is  Divine  revelation,  actually  and 
incessantly  going  on,  and  that  he  is  the  organ  of  it. 
His  own  voice  has  in  it  the  accent  of  eternity, 
and  the  more  according  to  his  height  of  soul.  "  The 
soul  of  God  is  poured  into  the  world  through  the 
thoughts  of  men."  Our  own  reason,  as  is  plain  to 
anyone  who  thinks,  springs  out  of  an  Eternal 
Reason.  That  the  outside  world  makes  the  same 
impression  upon  us  all  ;  that  we  call  things  by  the 
same  names  ;  that  we  find  in  each  of  our  minds 
the  same  laws  of  thought  and  feeling  ;  all  this  points 
to  a  common,  underlying  source.  Our  separate 
minds  are  leaves  of  the  same  tree.  And  when, 
from  our  mind  inward,  we  look  outward  on  the 
world  of  visible  things — the  grass  of  the  field,  the 
stone    in   the   road — we   find    them    all   embedded 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD  21 

in  mind.  They  are  thoughts  hardened  into  matter. 
Why,  then,  talk  of  isolation  ?  We  live  ever,  did 
we  know  it,  in  the  highest  society.  We  are  in 
immediate  communication  with  the  Eternal  Mind. 
But  this  Divine  self-revelation  goes  on,  as  we 
have  said,  according  to  a  fixed  law — the  law  of 
growth.  It  is  precisely  according  to  our  height  that 
God  opens  Himself  to  us.  Thus  is  it  that  we  see  a 
constant  progress  in  the  idea  of  God.  A  man's 
education,  the  age  he  belongs  to,  with  its  notions 
and  prejudices,  are  his  apparatus  of  observation. 
The  difference  in  the  apparatus  makes  all  the 
difference  in  the  object  viewed.  Jupiter  to  the 
naked  eye  is  one  thing  ;  quite  another  to  spectrum 
analysis  and  the  Lick  telescope.  Hence  the  God 
of  the  Middle  Ages  is  impossible  to  us.  The 
instruments  were  imperfect  and  so  reported  badly. 
Anselm's  theory  of  the  Atonement  in  his  "  Cur 
Deus  Homo  "  offers  us  a  deity  with  the  sentiments 
of  a  mediaeval  baron,  jealous  of  personal  honour, 
and  determined  to  vindicate  it  with  blood.  This 
eleventh-century  deity  is  not  ours.  So,  too,  in 
the  long,  fierce  centuries  during  which  power,  mere 
force,  was  regarded  as  of  itself  the  supreme  right, 
the  source  of  all  authority ;  and  when  remorseless 
cruelty  was  considered  a  mere  detail  of  its  exercise, 
the  doctrine  of  hell,  as  an  underground  furnace 
whose  torturing  flames  enwrapped  myriads  of 
victims  through  all  eternity,  seemed  natural  enough. 
In  the  Roman  Church  this  view  appears  still  to 
subsist,  for  we  read  in  a  recent  Jesuit  book  that 
"  sinners  in  heU  have  asbestos  souls  to  ensure  their 
burning  for  eternity." 


22  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

But  the  level  to  which  the  average  rehgious 
mind  of  to-day  has  risen  has  made  the  God  of  such 
procedures  impossible.  To  the  modern  ethical 
sense  it  is  absurd  to  talk  of  force  alone  as  making 
or  conferring  right.  Giant  strength  is  not  of 
itseK  Godlike.  Used  for  cruelty  it  is  demonic. 
The  mediaeval  hell  was  consonant  with  the  feudal 
ferocity  which  enabled  the  baron  to  feast  in  his  hall 
with  the  more  gusto  from  the  thought  of  his  miser- 
able captives  in  the  dungeons  underneath.  Their 
God  was  in  that  image.  We  see  with  clearer  eyes 
to-day.  Revelation  has  advanced  in  us  to  the 
point  of  exhibiting  ethic  as  supreme  over  mere 
power.  The  eternal  energy  at  the  back  of  the 
universe  could  doubtless  create  hells  a  miUion  times 
hotter  than  the  centre  of  the  sun.  But  energy 
of  itself  is  not  God  ;  no,  nor  the  greatest  part  of 
Him.  God's  hell,  whatever  it  may  be,  must  be 
full  of  God's  righteousness  and  full  of  His  love. 
We  might  cite  here  a  conversation  mth  an  earnest 
Christian  man  who  discussed  once  this  subject 
with  us.  We  put  the  following  queries  :  "Do 
you  beheve  that  God  is  everywhere  ?  "  "  Yes." 
"  Wherever  He  is  He  is  there  in  the  fulness  of  His 
nature  ?  "  "  Certainly."  "  And  you  believe  that 
God  is  Love  ?  "  "  Yes."  "  Then  surely  you  have 
enough  there  for  your  doctrine  of  hell  ?  For  if 
God  is  everywhere  He  is  certainly  in  hell.  And 
in  hell  as  the  Father,  whose  nature  is  Love." 

When  we  speak  of  God  as  Father — the  great 
word  of  Jesus  concerning  Him — we  come  to  another 
corner-stone  of  our  doctrine — the  element  of  per- 
sonahty.     Here,  again,  we  are  told  we  are  projecting 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD  23 

on  to  the  sky  a  gigantic  image  of  ourselves.  The 
Infinite,  it  is  affirmed,  cannot  be  personal,  because 
personality  implies  Umitation.  To  which  we  reply 
the  limitation  is  the  objector's,  not  ours.  When  we 
talk  of  personaUty,  do  these  people  suppose  we 
mean  our  personahty  ?  Enough  that  it  meets  ours 
and  knows  ours.  The  ultimate  Reality  is  the  source 
of  our  love,  of  our  justice,  of  our  forgiveness,  just 
as  it  is  the  source  of  our  mind  and  reason,  and  of 
our  physical  force.  But  love,  justice,  forgiveness 
are  functions  of  a  Person.  The  h'mitation  of  it 
is  one  in  our  own  minds.  The  Personahty  that  on 
one  of  its  sides  reaches  down  to  the  plane  of  our 
consciousness,  is  no  more  limited  by  this  contact 
than  is  the  Pacific  by  the  islets  round  which  its 
waves  sweep. 

It  is  impossible  to  explain  this  universe  apart 
from  personality,  and  every  attempt  to  do  so 
only  ties  the  experimenter  in  a  tangle  of 
contradictions.  Apart  from  it  we  find  no  in- 
telligible beginning  and  no  intelligible  end.  It  is 
indeed  along  all  the  sides  of  our  personality  that 
we  touch  God  and  are  made  conscious  of  His 
presence.  The  intellect  is  our  poorest  proof  of 
Him.  It  is  when  we  love,  suffer,  labour,  serve, 
forgive,  that  we  are  surest  of  God.  We  know  Him 
in  these  things  as  our  other  higher  part ;  it  is  from 
these  affectional  and  moral  riches  of  His  being 
that  we  draw  our  strength.  It  is  curious  what 
blunders  are  made  on  this  theme  by  our  cleverest 
men.  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  has  been  recently  telling 
us  "he  did  not  beheve  in  a  God  who  forgave. 
Nothing   could   be   forgiven."     One   wonders   how 


24  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the  word  "  forgive  "  ever  came  into  our  diction- 
aries if  there  be  no  such  thing  in  existence  ? 
We  have  here  simply  the  vulgar  confusion 
between  cause  and  effect  in  the  physical  sphere 
and  the  free  movement  of  volition  in  the  spiritual. 
Because  an  action,  a  crime,  shall  we  say,  produces 
its  inevitable  series  of  results,  and  that,  whatever 
may  pass  in  the  mind  of  the  wrongdoer,  we  are 
asked  to  disbeheve  in  the  possibility  and  actuality 
of  forgiveness.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  con- 
tinually proving  the  contrary.  Our  word  is  not 
in  the  dictionary  by  accident.  Mr.  Shaw  is  con- 
fusing the  meaning  of  words.  What  is  forgiveness  ? 
Not  assuredly  that  reversal  of  natural  laws  which 
he  seems  to  suppose.  It  is  a  transaction  of  the 
moral  and  vohtional  being.  To  take  Ritschl's 
definition  :  "  Pardon  is  an  act  of  will  by  which  there 
is  cancelled  that  aspect  of  an  injury  received  which 
interrupts  intercourse  between  the  injured  person 
and  the  offender."  When  we  know  God  as  personal 
we  realise,  though  the  laws  of  His  universe  go  on 
in  uninterrupted  operation,  how  He  whom  we 
grieve  by  our  sin  can  and  does  forgive. 

We  see  now  in  what  sense  our  paradox  at  the 
beginning  holds  good.  When  we  say  that  without 
man  there  were,  for  us,  no  God,  we  are  simply 
putting  in  another  way  the  formula  that  God's 
revelation  to  us  is  in  us.  And  the  revelation  is 
continuous.  Spinoza's  doctrine,  that  the  Universe, 
because  it  is  in  itself  the  Infinite  Being,  can  know 
ao  such  thing  as  ends,  or  progress,  being  perfect 
as  it  is,  does  not  satisfy  the  facts.  The  Cosmos 
is    a    deeper    thing    than    Spinoza's    mathematics. 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  GOD  25 

Calvin's  great  word,  "  Pie  hoc  potest  did  Deum 
esse  Naturam  "  ("  One  may  say  with  reverence  that 
God  is  Nature  "),  has  to  be  taken  with  a  reservation 
which  he  himself  held.  For  God  is  Nature,  and 
more.  Evolution,  if  it  means  anything,  means  a 
progression.  Is  not  the  greatest  thing  we  are 
reaching  to-day  this,  that  out  of  evolution  is  emerg- 
ing a  doctrine  of  God  which  sees  Him  as  the  perfect 
worker  behind  a  perfecting  Universe,  a  Universe 
which,  under  His  hand,  is  becoming  the  ever  truer, 
the  ever  more  adequate  expression  of  Himself  ? 
We  adore  the  God  whose  infinite  splendours  we 
see.  But  these  are  not  His  perfection.  That  be- 
longs to  a  realm  which  eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear 
heard  ;  the  disclosure  of  whose  treasures  will  be 
the  occupation  of  eternity. 


Ill 
The   Incarnation 

When  we  speak  of  the  birth  of  Christ  we  can 
imagine  someone  asking,  "  Which  birth  ?  "  It  is 
the  wonder  of  Jesus  that  He  is  being  perpetually- 
reborn.  Each  generation  incarnates  Him  anew, 
clothes  Him  in  the  flesh  and  blood  of  its  own  life 
and  thought.  As  we  glance  back  through  the  ages 
we  see  a  procession  of  Christ-figures  successively 
filling  the  scene,  each  different  from  the  others,  yet 
always  with  a  mystic  likeness  that  tells  us  it  is 
He.  Starting  from  the  apostolic  time,  what  trans- 
formations do  we  behold  !  We  pass  from  the  first 
to  the  second  century  to  find  ourselves  amid  the 
gigantic  phantasies  of  Gnosticism.  Christ  is  here 
one  of  the  interminable  chain  of  shadowy  beings 
conjured  up  by  the  fevered  Eastern  imagination. 
As  we  study  them  in  the  pages  of  Irenaeus  and 
Tertullian,  our  brain  reels  as  though  we  had  been 
caught  in  a  dance  of  Dervishes.  Later  comes 
the  Christ  conceived  in  the  Platonised  minds  of 
Alexandrian  Clement  and  Origen.  Next  we  have  the 
Christ  of  the  great  creeds,  the  Christ  of  the  Greek 
metaphysics.  Further  down,  as  we  approach  the 
dark  ages,  we  see  the  historic   Jesus  still  further 


THE  INCARNATION  27 

receding  from  the  view,  the  compassionate  Son  of 
Man  yielding  place  to  a  stern  and  terrible  being,  a 
rex  tremendae  majestatis,  whose  wrath  is  turned 
aside  by  the  intercession  of  His  Virgin  Mother. 
There  was  a  time  in  mediaeval  Christianity  when 
Christ  seemed  indeed  obliterated  almost  from  the 
popular  mind.  Thorpe,  in  his  "  Ancient  Laws  and 
Institutions  of  England,"  gives  this  direction  : 
"  Pray  first  to  St.  Mary  and  the  holy  apostles,  and 
the  holy  martyrs,  and  to  all  God's  saints.  .  .  . 
And  end  by  signing  yourself  and  by  saying  your 
Pater-Noster."  The  Founder  was  lost  in  His  own 
institution. 

There  have  been  other  rebirths  since  then,  of 
which  we  have  no  time  to  speak.  Let  us  come  to 
our  own  day.  For  our  age,  too,  has  had  its  Nativity, 
has  welcomed  a  new-born  Christ.  Jesus  dominates 
the  modern  consciousness.  His  is  still  "  the  name 
above  every  name."  But  His  form  differs  for  us 
with  all  the  difference  between  our  age  and  those 
behind  it.  The  garments  in  which  Gnostics,  Platon- 
ists,  Nicene  creed-makers,  Mediae valists,  Puritans 
successively  clad  Him  have  dropped  away.  He  is 
to  us  other  than  these  presentations,  and  for  the 
reason  that  we  see  Him  with  other  eyes.  We  are 
here  under  a  law  against  which  it  is  useless  to  strive, 
for  it  is  that  which  binds  us  and  the  universe  together. 
The  law  is  that  the  world  and  all  things  in  it  change 
as  we  change.  Earth,  air,  fire  and  water  are  quite 
different  things  to  us  from  what  they  were  to  our 
fathers,  who  thought  of  them  as  the  four  elements. 
And  history  has  changed  just  as  much  as  fire  and 
water,  and  for  the  same  reason.     In  this,  as  in  other 


28  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

departments,  the  raw  material  shows  a  new  aspect 
to  the  new  instruments.  We  sweep  the  past,  as 
we  sweep  the  heavens,  with  telescopes,  and  the 
results  in  the  one  case  are  not  less  remarkable  than 
the  other.  The  facts  of  history  under  this  inspection 
take  on  a  fresh  aspect  ;  and  besides,  we  have  a  new 
universe  into  which  to  fit  them.  Thus  is  it  that  the 
Christ  comes  to  us  to-day  clad  in  the  new  garments 
of  our  making,  as  a  rebirth  in  our  special  conscious- 
ness. Paul,  Augustine,  St.  Francis,  Luther,  Wesley 
saw  their  Jesus.     What  Jesus  do  we  see  ? 

Here,  we  have  just  said,  is  a  question  of  vision, 
and  we  have  accordingly  first  of  all  to  note  the 
development  that  has  come  in  that  quarter.  The 
eye  with  which  we  now  view  the  past  is  an  eye  charged 
with  certain  powers  that  are  comparatively  late 
acquisitions.  We  work,  for  instance,  with  a  new 
historic  sense,  with  a  new  principle  known  as 
evolution,  wath  a  definite  philosophy  of  history, 
with  a  new  conception  of  personality.  And  every 
one  of  these  acquisitions  affects  in  the  most  vital 
way  our  knowledge  of  Christ  and  of  the  Incarnation. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  we  have  reached  certainties 
on  all  points.  One  of  the  first  results  from  the 
new  methods  was  indeed  to  create  a  sense  of  con- 
fusion and  of  uncertainty.  A  freshly  won  power 
begins  generally  by  maiming  and  slaying.  If  we 
ever  fly  there  wall  be  a  holocaust  of  early  victims. 
We  begin  our  new  eras  with  blunderings  and  catas- 
trophes, and  this  has  been  specially  true  in  the 
sphere  of  religion.  Evolution,  for  instance,  stumbled 
first  into  materialism.  It  swept  the  unseen  world 
bare   of   inhabitants.     Not   only   had   goblins   and 


THE  INCARNATION  29 

fairies  disappeared  ;  there  was  no  room  for  person- 
ality anywhere.  Incarnation  and  Divine  visita- 
tions were  out  of  the  question,  for  there  was  no 
Divinity  left.  Matter,  force  and  law  were  the  only 
trinity — a  trinity  with  which  it  was  clearly  im- 
possible to  get  on  speaking  terms.  But  we  are 
emerging  from  that  most  dismal  of  conclusions. 
Science,  as  Wundt,  one  of  her  most  distinguished 
sons,  declares,  "  can  only  indicate  the  path  which 
leads  to  territories  beyond  her  own,  ruled  by  other 
laws  than  those  to  which  her  realm  is  subject." 
And  in  those  further  realms,  where  philosophy 
enters,  the  truth  most  visible  to  the  best  minds  to-day 
is  the  ubiquitous  presence  and  supremacy  of 
personality.  It  is  realised  as  the  top  and  bottom  of 
everything,  the  one  element  that  gives  significance  to 
life  and  makes  it  intelligible.  The  latest  science,  join- 
ing hands  here  with  philosophy,  finds  the  universe, 
instead  of  being  a  mere  unconscious  mechanism, 
to  be,  in  the  Avords  of  Professor  Shaler,  "  a  realm  of 
unending  and  infinitely  varied  originations.  Into 
the  equation  is  continually  going  the  influential 
qualities  of  newly-formed  individuahties,  and  from 
it  is  continually  being  drawn  those  that  pass  away." 
This  doctrine  of  personality  and  of  "  new  origina- 
tions " — the  doctrine,  in  other  words,  of  the  universe 
as  spiritual  and  as  ever  developing — carries  us  a 
long  way  in  the  direction  of  our  theme.  Conjoined 
with  it,  as  a  still  further  help,  let  us  take  now  another 
of  our  instruments  of  vision,  our  present-day 
philosophy  of  history,  our  view,  that  is,  of  humanity 
as  a  whole.  The  world  is  now  in  full  possession  of 
the  idea  that  history  is  no  mere  collection  of  isolated 


30  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

facts,  but  that  it  represents  an  organised  and 
definite  movement  towards  an  ascertainable  end. 
History  is,  in  short,  the  record  of  the  spirituaHsation 
of  humanity.  Augustine,  as  we  have  said,  in  his 
"  City  of  God,"  worked  on  that  principle,  though  he 
restricted  it  to  only  one  portion  of  the  race.  Pascal, 
in  his  great  saying  that  human  history  was  as  the 
story  of  a  single  individual  ever  growing  and  ever 
learning,  put  the  idea  into  its  modern  form,  the 
form  which  was  developed  with  such  prodigahty  of 
illustration  by  Lessing,  by  Herder,  by  Hegel,  in 
short,  by  the  whole  of  the  German  illuminati.  It 
is  now  no  longer  a  German  speculation,  but  the 
property  of  the  race.  It  is  at  the  back  of  all  our 
thinking  about  man.  The  late  Archbishop  Temple 
worked  it  into  his  much-discussed  essay  on  "  The 
Education  of  the  Human  Race."  Lamennais,  in 
his  "  Paroles  d^un  Croyant,^^  carried  it  to  the  extreme 
of  representing  humanity  as  in  itself  the  incarnation 
of  God,  the  eternal  victim,  bearing  its  cross,  ascend- 
ing its  Calvary,  offering  its  expiation. 

We  speak  of  this  as  extreme,  and  yet  it  was  a  hint 
of  the  truth.  For  it  is  now  perceived  that  we 
cannot  separate  our  thought  of  God  from  our  thought 
of  man.  We  remember  Kant's  definition  of  the 
Son  of  God,  as  humanity  in  its  moral  perfection. 
In  our  dissection  of  the  inner  spiritual  conscious- 
ness, whether  of  the  individual  or  of  the  race,  we 
find  it  more  than  ever  difficult  to  say  where  the 
human  ends  and  the  Divine  begins. 

Draw  if  thou  canst  the  mystic  line 
Severing  rightly  His  from  thine, 
Which  is  human,  which  Divine. 


THE  INCARNATION  31 

And  it  is  noteworthy,  in  all  that  world-wide  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  which,  in  differing  forms,  we  find 
in  India,  in  ancient  Babylonia,  in  Egypt,  in  the  Neo- 
Platonists,  in  the  Jewish  Kabbala,  to  emerge 
finally  as  a  foundation  principle  of  the  Hegelian 
philosophy,  we  have  always  the  "  Word,"  the 
manifestation,  that  is,  of  the  formless  abyss  of 
Deity,  becoming  incarnate  in  the  sphere  of  the 
visible,  of  space  and  time.  The  idea  is  rooted  in  the 
world,  and  gains  strength  by  every  advance  of 
scientific  knowledge  and  of  philosophic  thought, 
that  humanity  stands  for  more  than  is  now  visible  ; 
that  it  is  grounded  on  something  mightier  than 
itself ;  that  it  is  an  organ  of  a  greater  voice  than 
its  own  ;  that  it  is  open  to  vast  "  new  originations," 
to  continual  advances  in  the  spiritual  order  ;  that 
its  present  appearance  is  chiefly  a  prophecy  of  what 
it  is  yet  to  become. 

When,  therefore,  we  find  Christianity  putting  in 
its  forefront  a  doctrine  of  Incarnation,  and  pro- 
claiming the  historical  Jesus  as  Divine,  we  find 
ourselves  in  presence,  not  of  a  suddenly  launched, 
isolated  claim,  but  of  a  continuity,  both  of  idea  and 
of  experience,  which  must  command  our  attention. 
Observe  on  what  the  claim  is  based.  We  need  to 
come  back  here,  not  to  late  tradition,  but  to  begin- 
nings and  to  first  principles.  It  has  been  a  mistake  of 
orthodoxy,  from  which  it  is  time  Christian  thought 
finally  rid  itself,  to  base  its  doctrine  of  Incarnation 
on  the  notion  of  a  virgin  birth.  It  is  here  that,  as 
against  earUer  thinking,  the  modern  historic  sense 
asserts  itself.  From  the  old  view  of  Scripture  which 
regarded  the  Bible  as  homogeneous,  in  all  its  parts 


32  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

of  equal  value,  that  sense  has  brought  us  back  to  the 
facts.  We  see  the  New  Testament  as  the  first  age 
saw  it.  In  the  apostolic  time  these  writings  were 
not  regarded  as  Scripture  at  all,  but  as  the  free 
expression,  differing  in  value,  of  individual  Christian 
opinion.  Modern  scholarship  passes  through  these 
writings  to  their  sources,  from  the  later  additions  to 
the  original  material.  In  this  appraisement  the  birth 
stories  of  Matthew  and  Luke  fail  to  approve  them- 
selves as  of  authority.  They  stand  alone.  Mark, 
whose  gospel  is  now  generally  recognised  as  the 
earliest  of  the  four,  knows  nothing  of  these  events, 
nor  are  they  mentioned  in  the  fourth  gospel.  Jesus 
Himself,  in  all  His  recorded  utterances,  lets  drop 
no  word  about  them.  St.  Paul,  whose  Christology 
is  of  the  loftiest,  from  whom  above  all  others  the 
Church  has  taken  its  doctrine  of  Jesus  as  the 
Divine  Redeemer  and  Saviour,  nowhere  bases  or 
props  his  doctrine  on  these  or  similar  stories. 
Could  he  have  omitted  them  had  he  heard  of  or 
beheved  them  ?  He  begins  his  great  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  with  a  contrary  affirmation,  declaring 
that  "  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  "  .  .  .  "was  made 
of  the  seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh."  He 
was  made  to  be  "  the  Son  of  God  with  power," 
not  by  His  birth,  but  "  by  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead."  This  is  precisely  the  position  taken  in 
the  early  chapters  of  the  Acts,  where,  in  the  reputed 
utterances  of  St.  Peter,  which  form  unquestion- 
ably a  very  early  Christian  tradition,  Jesus  is 
declared  to  be  "a  man  approved  by  God  among 
you,"  and  "  whom  God  had  raised  up,  having 
loosed  the  pains  of  death." 


THE  INCARNATION  33 

The  birth  narratives  of  Matthew  and  Luke, 
which  stand  thus  sohtary,  so  strangely  unsupported 
by  the  earUest  and  most  authoritative  witnesses, 
bear  also  in  themselves  the  plainest  marks  of  their 
late  origin.  So  clumsily  have  they  been  compiled 
that  the  genealogies  which  have  been  tacked  on  to 
them  actually  derive  Christ's  royal  descent  through 
Joseph.  It  is  noteworthy  here  also  that  the  MS. 
discovered  by  Mrs.  Lewis  in  the  Sinaitic  convent 
gives  the  reading  of  Matthew  i.  16  as,  "  Joseph,  to 
whom  was  espoused  Mary  the  Virgin,  begat  Jesus 
who  is  called  the  Christ."  Besides,  the  two  narratives 
are  so  flatly  contradictory.  The  conditions  they 
describe  are  absolutely  different.  Matthew  gives 
us  a  state  of  terrorism  at  Bethlehem  and  Jeru- 
salem, with  Herod  commanding  a  slaughter  of 
the  innocents,  with  Joseph  and  Mary  fleeing  into 
Egypt  to  escape  his  bloodthirsty  hands.  Luke, 
in  contrast  to  this,  paints  a  picture  of  idyllic 
calm.  So  far  from  infant  murders,  from  conceal- 
ment, and  from  a  terror-stricken  flight  we  have 
the  mother  of  Jesus  going  with  her  babe  publicly 
to  the  temple,  showing  her  child  to  the  authorities, 
and  making  there  the  offerings  commanded  by 
the  law  ! 

One  need  not  add  to  these  arguments.  We  might, 
indeed,  have  dilated  on  the  absurdity  of  the  old 
Protestant  position,  which  made  the  virgin  birth  the 
safeguard  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  sinlessness, 
forgetting  that  the  human  taint,  if  it  did  not  affect 
Him  through  Joseph, ^assuredly,  according  to  their 
view,  reached  Him  through  Mary.  The  Catholics, 
with  their  doctrine  of  Mary's  Immaculate  Conception, 

3 


34  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

are  at  least  more  logical.  But  enough,  surely,  has 
been  said  for  a  revision  on  this  point  of  our  doctrine 
of  Incarnation.  It  is  time,  we  repeat,  that  the 
Church's  thought  should  abandon  this  untenable 
position,  and  should  instead  put  itself  once  more 
in  line  with  our  earhest  and  most  authoritative 
New  Testament  Scripture.  It  is  time  we  once 
more  based  our  Christology  where  Paul  and 
Peter  and  John  and  the  Master  Himself  based  it. 
What  was  good  enough  doctrine  for  the  apostles 
and  the  first  believers  should  be  good  enough 
for  us. 

What  then,  in  this  view,  is  the  Christian  Incarna- 
tion ?  It  is,  as  the  New  Testament  puts  it,  "  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh."  And  not  the  less  so  that  the 
manifestation  is  under  strictly  human  conditions. 
In  Jesus,  "  our  divinest  symbol,"  humanity  enlarged 
its  boundaries  to  take  in  Divinity.  The  "  new 
originations,"  of  which  modern  science  speaks, 
found  here  their  sublimest  example.  We  have 
only  to  read  the  Life  depicted  in  the  Gospels  to 
reahse  how,  entering  into  all  the  human  condi- 
tions, it  at  every  point  transcended  them  ;  how 
it  lifted  the  experiences  and  possibilities  of  Hving  up 
to  a  new  scale  ;  hoAV  it  compels  us  to  say  with 
Origen  that  "  Jesus  was  united  to  God  in  the  most 
essential  manner  "  ;  with  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia, 
that  "  God  in  Him  was  not  simply  immanent,  but 
that  the  spirit  of  Jesus  so  perfectly  appropriated  the 
Divine  as  to  become  one  with  it ;  "  with  Fichte, 
that  "  Jesus  is  in  a  wholly  peculiar  manner  the  only- 
begotten  and  first-born  Son  of  God  "  ;  and  with 
Ritschl,  that  He  represents  to  us   "  the  religious 


THE  INCARNATION  35 

value  of  God."  We  do  not,  we  have  said,  in  the 
spiritual  evolution  know  where  man  ends  and  God 
begins.  But  as  we  study  Jesus  in  His  life  and 
death,  and  in  the  power  of  His  Resurrection,  what 
we  do  know  is  that  here  God  and  man  are  manifestly 
one. 


IV 
The  Gospels  and  Miracle 

The  time  has  arrived  for  an  entire  openness  of 
treatment  on  this  and  alUed  subjects.  There  is  a 
notion  abroad  that  the  modern  theological  mind  is 
too  dexterous  in  concealments  ;  that  the  popular 
preacher  has  an  exoteric  doctrine  for  the  pulpit,  and 
an  esoteric  doctrine,  of  a  quite  different  complexion, 
for  himself  and  his  intimates.  Without  discussing 
here  the  moraUty  of  an  attitude  of  that  kind,  we 
may  say  at  once  that  it  is  an  economy  for  which  we 
at  least  have  no  use.  In  rehgion,  as  in  any  other 
subject,  if  a  teacher  is  to  be  of  any  genuine  service 
to  his  fellows  it  will  be  by  telhng  them  the  best  and 
truest  he  knows,  by  speaking  from  the  farthest 
height  he  has  reached.  That  is  so  in  science,  and 
it  will  have  to  be  so  in  theology.  There  is  no  virtue 
in  concealment,  and  the  age  is  sick  of  it.  The  re- 
proach which  Mark  Pattison  hurled  at  the  England  of 
a  generation  ago  that  "  it  contained  no  public 
for  a  scientific  treatment  of  theology  "  no  longer 
holds.  The  best  men  of  all  communions  are  with 
Pascal  in  his  declaration  that  "  the  highest  of 
Christian  truths  is  that  truth  should  be  loved  above 
all."  Let  us  in  this  spirit  try  to  ascertain  the 
present-day  aspect  of  our  question. 

36 


THE  GOSPELS  AND  MIRACLE  37 

Most  scholars,  whatever  their  standpoint,  would 
admit,  to  begin  with,  that  our  age  is  in  a  position  far 
more  favourable  than  any  other  for  forming  upon 
it  a  competent  opinion.  We  have  absorbed  the 
lessons  of  the  past — the  lessons  of  its  aggressive 
criticisms,  of  its  reactions  of  faith,  of  the  mistakes 
made  on  both  sides — in  attack  and  defence.  We 
have  new  Ught  on  history,  on  the  way  it  has  been 
made  ;  new  Ught  on  the  working,  at  different 
stages  of  its  growth,  of  the  human  mind  ;  we  have 
a  science  of  myth  and  legend,  of  the  way  they  arise 
and  develop  ;  we  have  a  fresh  psychology,  with 
its  openings  into  the  mysterious  forces  of  the  soul. 
And  we  have  a  philosophy  which,  after  a  period  of 
confusion,  is  at  last  assigning  the  proper  limits  of 
science,  as  an  authority  on  hfe's  ultimate  problems. 

These  gains  and  growths,  where  they  have  been 
really  assimilated,  create  in  serious  thinkers  an 
attitude  towards  our  question  which  is  at  once 
critical  and  constructive.  It  is  an  attitude  that  has 
outgrown  both  the  scepticisms  and  the  orthodoxies 
of  former  days.  Their  "  yes  "  and  "  no  "  are 
absorbed  into  a  larger  synthesis.  The  scornful 
rejections  of  a  Voltaire,  a  Diderot  and  a  Condorcet 
are,  in  the  hght  of  modern  investigation,  as  im- 
possible as  the  open-mouthed  creduhty  of  the  dark 
ages.  The  arguments  for  and  against  on  this 
matter  form  altogether  a  prodigious  and  at  first 
sight  a  very  bemldering  accumulation,  and  it  is 
only  by  a  careful  sifting  of  both  that  we  can  see 
the  way  to  any  sane  conclusion. 

The  history  of  this  controversy  is  a  compara- 
tively    brief    one.     Christendom,    torn    from     th*^ 


38  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

beginning  by  countless  dissensions,  was  up  to  quite 
a  late  period  practically  unanimous  about  its  miracles. 
Belief  in  them  was  easy,  because  it  coincided  with 
a  certain  phase,  not  then  outgrown,  of  the  human 
development.  Every  rehgion,  every  history  of 
the  early  world  produced  them,  and  for  the  reason 
that  it  was  the  nature  of  the  mind,  at  its  then  stage, 
to  produce  them.  They  grew  in  this  soil  as  naturally 
as  wheat  grows  to-day  in  a  Midland  shire.  But  a 
stage  was  reached  when  the  production  ceased.  And 
that  not  because  the  outside  world  had  changed. 
The  change  was  in  minds  and  thoughts.  And  now, 
instead  of  pious  wonder  stories,  each  more  astonish- 
ing than  the  last,  with  which  to  regale  the  faithful, 
we  have  a  Conyers  Middleton,  from  the  bosom  of 
the  Church  of  which  he  was  a  divine,  opening  a 
daring  inquiry  into  these  stories,  accusing  the 
Church  fathers  of  wholesale  forgery,  of  falsifying 
history,  of  adopting  to  the  fullest  extent  the  system 
of  pious  frauds.  There  follows  Hume  with  his 
famous  argument  of  the  credibility  of  miracle- 
evidence.  "  We  have  no  experience  of  the  break- 
ing of  natural  laws  ;  we  have  every  experience  of 
the  credulity  and  liability  to  error  of  human  narrators 
of  such  occurrences."  And  then  Strauss  with  his 
elaborate  doctrine  of  the  myth  and  its  appHcations 
to  the  New  Testament. 

It  would  be  absurd  for  anyone  to  minimise  the 
importance  of  these  later  movements  of  the  human 
mind.  They  were  natural  movements,  as  irresistible 
as  the  tides  or  the  march  of  the  seasons.  The  science 
of  comparative  mythology  has  settled  for  us  a  host 
of    questions   in   this    sphere.     It    has   established 


THE  GOSPELS  AND  MIRACLE  39 

with  the  utmost  certainty  the  way  in  which  at 
certain  stages  of  its  progress  the  mind  of  man 
works,  the  way  in  which  it  views  the  world  and 
events.  As  Crozier,  in  his  "  CiviHsation  and 
Progress,"  puts  it,  "  It  is  a  law  that  when  natural 
causes  are  unknown  events  are  attributed  to  the 
agency  of  wills  like  our  own.  As  the  causes  are 
discovered  the  wills  disappear."  Accordingly,  when 
to-day  we  deal  with  witnesses  of  events,  especially 
uncommon  events,  our  first  business  is  to  inquire 
into  their  mental  character,  into  the  kind  of  observ- 
ing apparatus  they  bring  to  bear.  The  account  of  an 
eclipse  given  severally  by  an  Australian  savage  and 
by  a  European  astronomer  would  be  in  each  case 
the  genuine  observation  of  an  actual  fact.  But 
what  a  different  story  they  would  make  of  it  !  The 
one,  awed  and  terror-stricken,  talks  of  an  avenging 
Power  blotting  out  the  sun  in  his  wrath  ;  the  other, 
who  has  been  taking  photographs  and  making 
calculations,  relates  the  particulars  of  what  to  him 
and  his  circle  is  an  entirely  natural  and  foreseen 
occurrence. 

It  is  impossible  to  keep  this  question  of  the  char- 
acter and  competence  of  the  witnesses  out  of  our 
study  of  the  New  Testament  miracles.  The  modern 
man  is  quite  entitled  to  ask — and  he  ivill  ask,  with  or 
without  our  leave — whether  what  actually  happened 
in  Judaea,  in  the  lifetime  of  Jesus,  would,  if  witnessed 
by  an  observer  with  the  mental  equipment  of  a 
modern  scientist,  have  been  recorded  after  the 
fashion  of  our  Gospels  ?  But  that  is  not  the  only 
question.  The  Gospel  records,  as  we  have  them, 
are  not  even  the  accounts  of  the  first-hand  witnesses- 


40  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

The  earliest  of  these  records  is  separated  by  at 
least  a  generation  from  the  occurrences  it  narrates. 
Criticism,  as  we  know,  has  made  the  most  of  this 
fact.  Examples  have  been  adduced  from  history 
of  the  way  in  which,  amongst  simple  peoples,  a 
plain  nari'ation  has  in  the  course  of  a  few  decades 
blossomed  into  a  miracle-story.  A  famous  instance 
is  that  of  Francis  of  Assisi  and  the  chroniclers  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  The  account  of  him  given  in 
the  "  Sj)eculum  Perfectionis  "  by  his  friend  and 
contemporary  Frater  Leo  is  of  historical  value. 
But  the  life  of  the  saint  written  by  Bonaventura, 
just  a  generation  after,  is  stuffed  with  the  incredible. 
An  instance  still  more  remarkable,  because  so 
close  to  our  own  day,  is  the  story  of  the  Babist 
prophet  AH  Mohammed,  the  seer  of  Shiraz,  held 
by  his  followers  to  be  a  kind  of  Messiah,  and  who 
was  executed  in  1850,  at  the  age  of  thirty.  There 
have  appeared  since  his  death  two  lives  of  him — one 
by  a  contemporary,  Mirza  Jani,  who  was  himself 
martyred  in  1852,  and  another  pubUshed  in  1880 
by  two  disciples.  A  comparison  of  the  two  is  the 
most  suggestive  of  studies  in  the  development  of 
legend.  The  latter  "  History  "  is  entirely  on  the 
plane  of  the  miraculous,  including  even  a  trans- 
figuration of  the  prophet  in  1846,  on  his  way  from 
Shiraz  to  Teheran.  And  yet  this  wonder-story 
appeared  in  the  Hfetime  of  All's  widow  !  True  indeed 
is  it,  as  Sir  Richard  Burton  says,  that  "  miracles 
grow  apace  in  the  East,  and  a  few  years  suffice  to 
mature  them." 

The  great  trouble  of  the  modern  investigator  is, 
then,  the  haziness  of  the  old-world  witnesses  as  to  the 


THE  GOSPELS  AND  MIRACLE  41 

difference  between  a  fact  and  an  imagination.  To 
reach  our  fact  we  have  to  struggle  through  two  thick 
fog-banks.  First,  there  is  that  of  the  secondhand, 
hearsay  character  of  much  of  our  evidence.  In  pre- 
scientific  times  the  story  as  it  passes  from  mouth  to 
mouth  continually  changes  form.  It  does  so  accord- 
ing to  a  regular  law  of  the  primitive  mind.  It  was 
an  early  perception  of  this  law  which  led  Euhemerus 
to  his  shrewd  suggestion,  adopted  by  many  modern 
thinkers,  that  the  Pagan  deities  were  really  pre- 
historic heroes  whose  deeds  had  been  magnified 
by  hearsay  into  the  legends  of  Olympus.  But 
when  we  have  got  through  this  fog-wall ;  when, 
through  the  region  of  second  or  third  hand  reports 
we  have  reached  our  first-hand  witness,  we  are  not 
even  then  in  clear  dayhght.  Our  first-hand  witness 
may  have  a  fog  in  his  own  brain.  What  is  his 
capacity  of  seeing  the  thing  before  him,  and  of 
reporting  it  ?  We  remember  our  Australian  and 
the  eclipse.  People  see  according  to  what  they 
carry  in  their  minds.  That  good  Chinese  Buddhist 
Hiouen-Thsang  declares  that  Buddha's  footprint 
"  appears  of  more  or  less  size  according  to  the 
greater  or  less  faith  of  the  beholder."  Exactly. 
It  is  this  "  faith  "  of  the  early  beholder  which 
is  the  problem  of  the  modern  observer.  How 
much  of  what  he  reports  is  "  faith,"  and  how  much 
fact  ?  We  remember  the  story  told  by  Erasmus 
of  a  party  riding  to  Richmond,  when  a  wag  of 
the  company  stopped  suddenly  and  stared  into  the 
sky.  "  God  avert  this  prodigy  !  "  "  What  ?  " 
"  Can  you  not  see  that  large  dragon  there  with  the 
horns  of  flame,  and   tail  hooped  into  a  circle  ?  " 


42  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

"  No."  Finally  one,  dreading  to  be  thought  short- 
sighted or  blockish,  said  he  saw  it.  Then  the  others 
in  quick  succession.  In  three  days  the  report  ran 
through  the  land  of  a  great  portent  ! 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  modern  difficulty.  The 
world  is  what  it  was,  but  the  mind  of  man  is  not 
what  it  was.  It  has  attained  to  a  perception  of 
law,  of  the  relation  of  cause  to  effect,  of  the  uni- 
formity of  nature,  to  which  the  early  world  was  a 
stranger.  And  this  difference  of  mind  has  thrown 
us  into  a  new  attitude  towards  the  primitive  histories. 
We  can  no  longer  take  them  at  their  face  value- 
We  deduct  a  heavy  discount,  the  discount  of  their 
psychological  element. 

We  have  now  to  inquire  as  to  how  far  this  modern 
attitude,  and  the  criticism  that  has  arisen  out  of  it, 
affects  the  question  of  miracle  as  a  feature  of 
Christianity.  Faced  with  our  difficulty,  we  find  a 
variety  of  attitudes  toward  it  recommended  to  us 
from  different  quarters.  There  is  that  of  turning 
our  heads  away  from  such  questions  as  beyond  our 
competence.  We  are  to  accept  the  thing  as  it 
stands  because  the  Church  says  so.  We  are  to 
enthrone  Authority  in  the  place  of  reason,  and  cry 
with  Tertullian,  "  Credo  quia  impossibile  !  "  This 
is  the  Roman  demand,  and  we  see  the  condition  to 
which  it  has  brought  religion  on  the  Continent. 
How  this  conflict  between  reason  and  authority 
works  inside  the  Church  is  shown  in  the  case  of  a 
scholar  like  the  Abbe  Loisy,  who,  in  his  capacity  of 
critic,  after  subjecting  the  New  Testament  to  an 
analysis  which  reduces  everything  to  pure  naturahsm, 
tells  his  hearers  to  accept,  as  CathoUcs,  what  he  has 


THE  GOSPELS  AND  MIRACLE  43 

been  instructing  them  to  deny  as  students  !  When 
we  inquire  more  closely  as  to  what  this  "  Church 
authority  "  really  amounts  to,  we  shall  probably 
come  to  the  conclusion  of  the  first  Napoleon  at  the 
end  of  his  prolonged  discussions  with  the  Roman 
hierarchy  over  the  Concordat.  After  interrogating 
one  dignitary  after  another,  from  the  Pope  down- 
wards, on  questions  of  faith,  his  final  word  about  it  all 
was  :  "  Each  Catholic  priest  has  in  reality  his  own 
reHgion.  The  Pope's  is  different  from  that  of  the 
Cardinals,  and  these  do  not  agree  among  them- 
selves in  religious  matters." 

But  if  we  decline  this  way  of  meeting  our  question, 
are  we  compelled  to  the  opposite  one,  of  revolt  and 
wholesale  rejection  ?  Must  we  join  the  Diderots 
and  the  D'Holbachs  ?  Are  we  to  say  with  Condorcet, 
"  there  is  not  a  reUgious  system  or  a  piece  of  super- 
natural extravagance  that  does  not  rest  on  ignor- 
ance of  natural  laws "  ?  On  the  contrary,  we 
believe  that  the  encyclopaedists  are  as  much  outgrown 
as  the  medisevalists  ;  that  the  deniers  and  the 
assertors  come  alike  short  of  their  fact  ;  though  the 
two,  while  they  failed  to  reach  it,  were  moving  in 
its  direction,  as  the  twin  arms  of  the  sculler,  work- 
ing on  opposite  sides  of  the  boat,  each  propel  it 
towards  its  goal.  The  mind,  by  its  very  constitution, 
must  go  on  asking  its  questions  and  demanding 
answers.  Let  us  see  to  what  its  resistless  process, 
operating  on  our  problem,  has  brought  us  to-day. 

First  of  all,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  we  cannot  treat 
this  special  New  Testament  question  apart  from 
its  relation  to  some  others.  Truth  is  one,  because 
the  Universe  is  one.     And  so  what  has  happened 


44  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

in  any  part  of  the  Universe,  if  its  innermost  mean- 
ing is  to  be  reached,  must  be  studied  in  connection 
with  the  whole.  We  need  then,  at  the  beginning, 
to  take  a  far  look,  and  to  ask  how  the  entire  cosmic 
scheme,  as  far  as  we  can  see  into  it,  appears  in 
regard  to  the  questions  we  are  raising.  Modern 
philosophy,  for  one  thing,  has  taught  us  how 
cautious  we  should  be  as  to  arbitrary  verdicts 
resting  on  appearances.  Inquirers  here  might 
study  with  advantage — it  would  be  for  them  a 
capital  exercise  in  dialectics — ^works  such  as  Bradley's 
"  Appearance  and  Reality,"  and  Herbert  Spencer's 
"  First  Principles."  Here  they  would  find,  on 
reason's  own  showing,  the  limitations  of  reason. 
They  w^ould  find  how  our  fundamental  working 
ideas — ^those  of  time,  space,  motion,  causality — 
when  analysed,  show  as  absolutely  self -contradictory. 
Our  reason  works  up  to  a  certain  point  and  then 
stops — or  proceeds  to  refute  itself.  Anyone  who 
has  explored  these  heights  comes  back  with  the 
feehng  that  behind  our  logic  is  a  deeper  one  ;  that 
our  apparatus  measures  only  a  few  feet  down  into 
the  fathomless  ocean  ;  that  Ufe,  as  it  wells  from 
the  fountains  of  being,  is  something  so  infinitely 
subtler  than  all  our  syllogisms. 

When,  with  all  that  in  mind,  we  come  closer  to  our 
topic,  we  discover  next  that  Science,  which  has 
destroyed  so  many  of  the  older  grounds  of  behef, 
has  been  not  less  busy  creating  new  ones.  It  has 
given  us  for  one  thing  a  new  definition  of  miracle,  a 
fresh  thought  to  bring  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
New  Testament  "  semeion''  Old  Hobbes,  long  ago, 
in  his  "  Leviathan,"    pointed   out  that  the  same 


THE  GOSPELS  AND  MIRACLE  45 

thing  might  be  a  miracle  to  one  man  and  not  to 
another.  He  saw,  as  we  now  see,  that  it  is  a 
question  of  personahty.  Science,  in  its  enormous 
widening  of  the  reign  of  law,  has  at  the  same  time 
opened  to  us  the  immeasurable  possibiUties  of 
personahty.  And  it  is,  we  say,  personality  that  is  at 
the  root  of  miracle.  This,  in  both  the  ancient  and 
modern  conception  of  it.  According  to  what  we 
know  and  are,  does  the  miraculous  lie  in  us.  The 
civilised  man  who  lands  on  a  savage  island  and, 
in  sight  of  its  untutored  inhabitants,  kills  a  bird  at 
a  hundred  yards  by  bending  his  finger  on  a  trigger, 
is  to  them  a  wonder-worker.  He  has  accomphshed 
all  they  understand  by  a  miracle.  He  has  shown 
himself  a  being  beyond  their  capacity  of  being. 
What  he  has  done,  however,  is  no  infraction  of  law. 
It  is  simply  a  result  of  the  knowledge  of  law.  And 
here,  talking  of  laws,  we  perceive  emerging  another 
law — this,  namely,  that  the  higher  the  grade  of 
personality  the  more  complete,  and  to  lower  natures 
the  more  miraculous,  will  be  his  power  over  Nature. 
And  that  always,  not  by  contradicting  her,  but 
by  knowing  her.  Could  a  judge  or  chronicler  of  the 
first  century  be  imagined  as  witnessing  what 
we  see  to-day  ;  could  he  see  a  motor  whizzing  at 
twenty  miles  an  hour  without  visible  means  of 
traction,  or  invisible  molecules  in  a  Crookes'  tube 
beating  by  their  impact  a  mass  of  metal  into  white 
heat,  he  would  write  it  all  down  as  miracle.  And  so 
it  would  be — to  him.  Not  so  to  the  chauffeur,  or 
to  Sir  William  Crookes. 

Personality,  then,  we  say,  is  at  the  top  and  bottom 
of  everything.     Get  the  quahty  of  it  high  enough 


46  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

and  there  is  nothing  we  may  not  expect  from  it. 
Nature  herself  is  the  expression  of  personaUty. 
Thought  and  will  are  the  ultimate  ground  of  her 
existence.  A  Schopenhauer  and  a  Hartmann 
acknowledge  that.  Your  pebble,  your  piece  of 
chalk,  are  but  the  outer  crust  of  ideas ;  their 
existence,  their  qualities,  cannot  be  conceived  apart 
from  thought.  They  are  embedded  in  mind.  And 
as  Nature  exists  by  the  thought  behind  her,  so 
she  obeys  thought  made  visible  here,  in  humanity, 
in  proportion  to  the  height  of  that  humanity. 

All  this  has  brought  us,  by  a  somewhat  circuitous 
route  perhaps,  to  the  personahty  of  Christ,  and  the 
relation  of  Christ  to  the  New  Testament  miracles. 
What  He  did  upon  this  earth  is  partly  a  question  of 
evidence,  and  partly  a  question  of  His  quaUty  of 
being.  As  to  the  evidence,  we  have  made  all  the 
admissions  concerning  it  which  the  severest  criti- 
cism demands.  For  ourselves  we  are  prepared  to 
admit  the  possibility  of  a  legendary  element  having 
crept  into  the  Gospels,  and  coloured  certain  of  the 
accounts  there  of  His  doings.  A  guaranteed  human 
infalUbility  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  included  in 
the  schedule  of  the  Divine  education  of  man. 
How  much  is  to  be  deducted  from  the  Gospel  story 
on  this  account  is  a  matter  which,  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  we  should  not,  ourselves,  care 
dogmatically  to  pronounce  upon. 

But  no  one  will  be  in  a  position  to  form  a  proper 
judgment  here  who  has  not  previously  taken  into 
account  certain  considerations.  We  can,  to  some 
extent,  judge  of  what  we  do  not  know  by  what  we 
do  know.     And  we  have  in  this  matter  one  certainty 


THE   GOSPELS   AND   MIRACLE  47 

to  start  with.  That  is  the  impression  made  by  Jesus 
upon  His  disciples  and  upon  their  successors  through 
all  the  following  ages.  You  calculate  the  intensity 
of  a  force  by  its  effects.  The  propulsive  quality  of 
a  new  explosive  is  shown  by  the  distance  to  which  it 
hurls  the  shot.  If  we  try  in  this  way  to  measure 
the  quality  of  Jesus,  the  sheer  power  of  His  person- 
ality, we  are  at  a  loss  to  put  a  limit  to  it.  It  created 
a  devotion  to  Him,  a  worship  of  Him,  which  has 
never  ceased,  and  the  like  of  which  has  not  been  seen. 
It  founded  a  religion  which  has  changed  the  world. 
If  the  Gospel  narratives  are  exaggerations,  we  have 
to  account  for  the  feehng  which  produced  the 
exaggeration,  which  compelled  these  people  to 
speak  in  superlatives. 

The  question  for  us  here,  be  it  remarked,  is  not 
how  Jesus  came  to  be  what  He  was,  the  actual 
process  which  brought  Him  as  a  personality  into  our 
world.  The  controversy  as  to  the  Virgin  Birth  is  not, 
as  we  have  before  said,  of  the  importance  which  some 
attribute  to  it.  The  point  is  not  how  things  come 
to  be,  but  what  they  are.  Processes  are  mere 
details.  When  we  see  radium  at  work  the  thing 
that  strikes  us  is  not  chiefly  how  it  got  here — the 
way  in  which  pitch-blende  and  other  materials 
have  been  handled  so  as  to  produce  this  result. 
The  supreme  matter  is  not  the  genesis  of  radium, 
but  radium.  It  is  the  new  power  that  has  emerged, 
this  extract  of  extracts,  which  by  its  sheer  superb 
quahty  of  being  accomplishes  its  effortless  miracles, 
that  holds  us  enthralled.  And  so  with  Jesus. 
He  Himself  says  nothing  about  His  birth,  nor 
does   St.   Paul.     Had   it   been   one   of   the   things 


48  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

that    mattered    we    should   have  looked  for  some 
word. 

But  the  word  was  not  needed.  His  being  is  the 
miracle  just  as  radium  is  the  miracle.  In  the  two 
cases,  in  the  higher  realm  of  spirit,  as  in  the  lower 
realm  of  the  physical,  we  have  the  emergence  of  a 
new  power  that  works  according  to  its  character. 
In  each  there  are  effects  that  transcend  the  effects 
accompUshed  by  lower  grades.  With  what  scornful 
incredulity  should  we,  a  few  years  ago,  have  met  the 
suggestion  of  a  mere  atom  containing  force  enough 
to  keep  a  clock  ticking  through  tens  of  thousands  of 
years  !  The  suggestion  is  not  laughed  at  to-day. 
And  if  the  region  of  the  visible  gives  us  these 
wonders,  what  reason  have  we  for  rejecting  similar 
possibihties  in  the  more  potent  realm  behind,  the 
realm  of  the  invisible,  of  the  spirit  ?  Give  us  here  a 
quality  of  being  high  enough,  and  we  shall  not  be  so 
foolish  as  to  dogmatise  on  what  it  can  or  cannot  do. 
Radium  is,  to  our  present  observation,  a  break  in 
the  history  of  matter.  The  Gospel  story  is  a  break 
in  the  history  of  spirit.  The  world's  record  as 
disclosed  to  us  by  science  has  prepared  us  for 
phenomena  of  this  kind.  It  shows  us  on  the  natural 
plane  periods  of  steady  progress  interspersed  at 
long  intervals  with  breaks,  with  vast  upheavals, 
with  fresh,  wonderful  developments  of  the  life- 
process.  The  first  spin  given  to  the  nebulous  gas, 
the  beginning  of  life  on  the  earth,  the  appearance 
of  man  upon  it,  are  starting-points  of  this  kind — 
red-letter  dates  in  eternity's  calendar,  new  chapters 
of  the  cosmic  story.  And  if  this  is  the  course  of 
things  on  the  lower,  physical  plane,  may  we  not 


THE   GOSPELS  AND   MIRACLE  49 

expect  its  analogue  in  the  realms  of  the  mind  and 
the  soul  ?  Here,  as  in  that  other  region,  we  look  for 
the  steady  humdrum  movement,  continued  till  it 
has  run  out  its  hour,  reached  its  farthest  Umit,  and 
there  touched  the  spring  which  releases  another 
mystery  of  power.  From  pitch-blende  we  arrive 
at  radium ;  from  centuries  of  Jew  legaUsm  we 
come  out  upon  the  Christ. 

It  is  to  some  such  point  as  this  that  modern 
research,  moving  through  all  its  departments, 
seems  to  conduct  us.  The  writers  of  our  Gospels 
are  simple-minded  persons  who  bring  us  a  report, 
couched  in  their  own  language,  of  an  unparalleled 
phenomenon  in  the  spiritual  world.  Their  descrip- 
tion bears  all  the  marks  of  the  time  and  place  from 
which  it  derives.  It  is  coloured  by  the  preposses- 
sions, and  characterised  by  the  Umitations  of  an 
unscientific  age.  But  through  all  this  shines  the 
tremendous  Fact  itself  ;  what  is  more,  through  all 
this  pours  to-day  upon  us,  undiminished,  the 
spiritual  power  inherent  in  that  Fact.  And  the 
force  it  contains  is  a  redeeming  force.  Jesus  is 
still  the  soul's  miracle.  His  attraction  is  perennial, 
and  whomsoever  He  attracts  He  uplifts  and  purifies. 
As  to  physical  signs  and  wonders,  though  we  cannot 
in  that  sphere  measure  His  power,  it  was  not  upon 
these  He  put  the  emphasis.  Nor  need  we.  He 
was  capable  of  so  much  greater  things — the  things 
He  accomplished  and  does  now  accompHsh  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  What  need  for 
further  witness  ?  Who  hath  seen  Him  hath  seen  the 
Father.  In  Him  we  read  the  Divine  secret.  Union 
with  Him  is  union  with  God. 

4 


Our  Doctrine  of  Sin 

In  the  great  intellectual  resettlement  which  the 
Christian  consciousness  owes  to  itself  in  our  time 
there  is  perhaps  no  outstanding  account  more 
pressing  than  that  of  its  doctrine  of  sin.  What  is 
that  doctrine,  and  how  does  it  relate  itself  to  the 
facts  and  realities  of  our  modern  world  ?  It  is 
on  this  subject,  we  are  told,  that  science  and  theo- 
logy come  most  definitely  into  collision.  Chris- 
tianity, it  is  said,  bases  itself  on  the  dogma  of  a 
Fall ;  science,  on  the  contrary,  asserts  that  the 
human  history  is  that  of  a  perpetual  rise.  A 
Continental  school  of  philosophy,  headed  by  Nietz- 
sche, goes  further.  It  makes  the  consciousness  of 
sin  to  be  a  kind  of  disease,  which  man  has  caught  by 
the  way  and  which  he  must  get  rid  of.  It  came  in 
with  the  change  he  experienced  when  he  passed  from 
the  wild  into  the  social  state.  It  is  analogous  to 
the  feeling  the  water  animals  had  when  compelled 
to  become  land  annuals.  The  special  type  of 
evolution-philosophy  represented  by  Fiske  ap- 
proaches the  theme  from  yet  another  point  of 
view.  "  Theology,"  says  he,  "  has  had  much  to 
say  about  original  sin.     This  original  sin  is^neither 

50 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  51 

more  nor  less  than  the  brute  inheritance  which 
every  man  carries  with  him  ;  and  the  pro- 
cess of  evolution  is  an  advance  towards  true 
salvation."  Modern  philosophic  idealism,  so  far 
as  it  follows  Hegel,  also  has  its  challenge  to  the 
average  Christian  thought,  by  its  practical  denial 
of  human  freedom,  treating,  as  it  does,  our  person- 
ality as  a  phase  of  the  absolute  consciousness  which 
is  here  going  through  its  series  of  necessary  pro- 
cesses. And  as  if  there  were  not  enough  already 
on  our  hands,  we  have  modern  investigation  open- 
ing up  for  us  the  whole  story  of  sacrifice  and  ritual 
in  relation  to  sin,  as  it  has  developed  through  the 
ages,  and  asking  us  how  the  Church  dogma  on 
these  points  looks  in  the  new  Hght  ? 

In  discussing  this  theme  we  cannot  do  better 
than  begin  with  a  little  history.  How  did  the 
world  come  by  its  notions  of  sin  and  demerit  ? 
The  record  is  curiously  mixed.  From  the  begin- 
ning men  everywhere  have  a  right  and  a  wrong, 
but  their  "  right  "  and  "  wrong  "  are  often  to 
us  so  utterly  strange.  Amongst  the  Tupinambas  of 
Brazil  the  saints,  who  will  reach  their  heaven  as 
having  "  lived  well,"  are  those  who  have  well 
avenged  themselves  and  eaten  many  enemies. 
In  the  religion  of  ancient  Babylon  we  find  in  the 
Incantation  Tablets,  amid  curses  directed  against 
definite  immorahties,  others  equally  pronounced 
against  "  pointing  with  the  finger  at  fire,"  and 
"  sitting  facing  the  sun."  In  those  uncounted 
millions  of  the  human  race,  who  through  scores  of 
generations  have  filled  the  vast  Chinese  empire, 
there  seems  never  to  have  been  a  consciousness  of 


52  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

sin  in  the  usual  Christian  sense.  In  the  teaching 
of  Confucius,  and  later  of  Mencius,  man  has  no  need 
of  grace,  for  he  is  not  inherently  bad.  He  is,  to 
use  Lord  Palmerston's  famous  phrase,  "  born 
good,"  and  requires  only  proper  instruction  and 
favouring  circumstance  to  develop  what  is  in  him. 
In  ancient  Greece  we  find  philosophy  at  logger- 
heads with  theology.  The  old  religion  confused 
the  moral  issues  by  its  villainous  deities,  who 
incited  men  to  abominable  crimes,  which  they 
then  punished  in  an  abominable  way.  We  have 
Socrates,  on  the  other  hand,  identifying  virtue 
with  knowledge.  A  man  is  vicious  because  he 
does  not  know  better.  Sin  is  moral  unskilfulness,  a 
kind  of  folly.  It  is  worth  noting  in  this  connection 
that  the  Greek  word  in  our  New  Testament  which 
stands  for  "  sin,"  liamartia,  means  in  its  first, 
classical  acceptation,  just  a  failure,  a  missing  of 
the  mark. 

We  need  to  bear  in  mind  these  various  attitudes 
as  to  sin  in  order  to  estimate  accurately  the  teaching 
and  spirit  of  Christianity.  Unquestionably  the 
Gospel  brings  to  the  theme  a  new  and  deeper  note. 
At  the  same  time,  it  simplifies  the  issue.  The  heathen 
doctrine  of  sin  was  largely  a  doctrine  of  taboo. 
You  might,  as  did  the  Assyrian  kings,  burn  or 
impale  your  captives,  and  glory  in  it,  but  you 
must  not  "  point  your  finger  at  the  fire."  Sin,  as 
often  as  not,  was  the  offending  of  ridiculous  or 
immoral  deities,  to  be  placated  by  something 
equally  ridiculous  and  immoral.  Jesus  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  taboo  notion.  He  had 
no  use  for  ceremoniahsm.     He  did  not  beheve,  as 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  63 

priests  in  every  generation  have  believed ,  in  creating 
fancy  theological  diseases  to  be  cured  by  fancy 
theological  remedies.  With  Him  sin  was  bad 
ethic.  It  was  the  contradiction  of  Hfe's  highest  law 
—the  law  of  love.  It  was  the  wounding  by  this 
means  of  your  neighbour  and  of  your  Heavenly 
Father.  It  derived  its  sting  and  its  heinousness 
from  the  fact  that  the  love  on  which  it  trampled 
was  so  high,  so  beautiful,  so  perfect. 

It  is  from  this  as  starting-point  that  we  begin  to 
see  our  way  into  many  things.  Christianity,  we 
have  said,  has  a  deeper  note  concerning  sin  than  is 
found  elsewhere.  Its  "  conviction  of  sin "  is 
peculiar  to  itself.  Its  saints,  in  every  generation, 
have  begun  with  this.  There  is  no  Hterature  out- 
side which  carries  such  an  accent  of  contrition. 
You  may  search  the  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome,  of 
China  and  India,  of  Egypt  and  Babylon,  and  you 
will  not  find  it.  This  sentiment  of  guilt-consciousness 
has  doubtless  often  been  carried  to  extremes, 
and  has  earned  the  criticism  it  has  met  with.' 
There  is  no  reHgion  in  grovelhng. 

But  we  have  notliing  here  to  do  with  exaggera- 
tions. Let  us  consider  the  sentiment  in  itself. 
When  we  ask  why  it  is  that  Christianity  carries  this 
special  note  of  the  consciousness  of  sin  we  are 
immediately,  for  answer,  thrown  back  upon  some 
fundamental  facts  of  the  spiritual  hfe.  We  stumble, 
for  instance,  on  that  foundation  paradox  that  the 
sense  of  sin  is  the  gauge  of  progress.  That  man 
has  this  sense  is  the  sign  that  he  is  rising  ;  the 
intensity  of  the  sense  denotes  the  height  to  which  he 
may  rise.     In  his  pre-human,  animal  stage  he  did 


54  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the  things  he  now  calls  sinful,  and  many  more. 
But  he  did  not  know  them  by  that  name.  It  was 
when  the  ideal  of  something  higher  dawned  on  him, 
that  the  sense  awoke  of  moral  defect.  It  is  what 
might  happen  in  art.  A  village  dauber  by  his 
early  efforts  gains  the  admiration  of  his  circle,  and 
has  an  excellent  conceit  of  himself.  Later  he 
emerges  from  these  surroundings  to  come  in  con- 
tact with  the  real  thing,  in  the  great  masters.  The 
confrontation  with  this  perfection  confounds  him. 
He  feels  now  an  "  artistic  conviction  of  sin."  He 
repents,  and  abhors  himself  in  dust  and  ashes — a 
sign  that  he  is  on  the  way  up.  And  as  in  art  so  in 
morals.  It  is  precisely  because  the  Christian  ideal 
is  the  loftiest  that  has  opened  to  the  soul  of  man, 
that  the  contemplation  of  it  has  produced  in  him, 
age  after  age,  this  peculiar  depth  and  intensity  of 
self-abasement  and  reproach. 

It  is  along  this  Une  also  that  we  find  answer  to 
the  objection  of  science  against  the  Christian  view 
of  man  as  fallen  and  needing  redemption.  "  There 
has  been  no  fall,"  says  our  evolutionist ;  "  man 
has  been  continually  rising."  "  Well  and  good," 
we  reply,  "  but  let  us  consider  a  Uttle."  What 
do  we  mean  by  falling  and  rising  ?  It  may  turn  out 
that  the  two  are  necessary  parts  of  the  same  process. 
We  may  here  remember  Pascal's  definition,  made  so 
much  of  later  by  German  philosophy,  that  the 
history  of  mankind  is  as  the  history  of  a 
single  individual  ever  growing  and  ever  learning. 
What  is  individual  history  ?  It  is  that  at  the 
beginning  of  the  child  who  physically  rises  by 
degrees    to    the   capacity    of    a    fall — which    will 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  55 

come  probably  in  its  first  journey  across 
the  floor — and  morally  of  the  same  child, 
beginning  with  mere  animal  appetite  and 
sensation,  arriving  at  last  at  the  moral  sense,  at 
that  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong  which  it  will 
sooner  or  later  violate,  one  way  or  another.  And  if 
humanity  as  a  whole  made  its  progress  after  this 
fashion  ;  if  in  its  advance,  according  to  the  evolu- 
tion account,  from  subhuman  to  human,  it  has 
followed  the  analogy  of  the  child,  what  quarrel 
arises  between  science  and  theology  ?  Religion 
holds  to  both  a  rise  and  a  fall ;  the  fall  as  part  of 
the  rise.  It  not  only  accepts  the  advance  of  the 
race.  By  its  opening  to  the  soul  of  the  spiritual 
ideal,  with  the  consequent  immediate  overpowering 
sense  of  inner  loss  and  defect,  it  operates  as 
the  most  puissant  factor  in  furthering  that 
advance. 

But  this,  which  is  true  of  Christianity  in  its  pure, 
spiritual  conception,  is  assuredly  not  so  of  very 
much  that  has  been  offered  as  Christianity.  And 
that  by  Protestant  not  less  than  by  Catholic. 
Both,  in  their  dogmatic  treatment  of  sin,  have 
practically  denied  the  Gospel.  They  forgot  its 
central  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood.  They  took 
hold  of  infinity  by  the  wrong  end.  They  argued 
that  because  God  was  an  Infinite  Being,  therefore 
man's  sin  against  Him  must  be  infinite,  and  open 
to  infinite  punishment.  A  sense  in  them  even  of 
humour,  one  would  think,  should  have  saved  them 
from  such  a  conclusion.  God's  perfection  here  comes 
in  indeed  for  some  strange  handhng.  In  its  name 
Augustine   falls   into   self-contradiction,   and   then 


56  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

into  what  seems  like  blasphemy.  In  one  breath  he 
declares  a  good  God  cannot  create  a  bad  nature. 
In  the  next  he  is  asserting  that  evil  resides  in  the 
will,  though  as  to  where  that  originally  came  from 
he  does  not  enhghten  us.  His  further  doctrine 
that  the  choice  of  good  in  one  will  and  of  evil  in 
another  rests  on  the  bestowal  or  non-bestowal  of 
grace,  throws  in  the  end,  though  he  does  not  recog- 
nise it,  the  whole  responsibility  on  God.  The  circle 
of  theological  atrocity  is  complete  when,  holding 
still  to  the  dreary  fiction  of  man's  infinite  sin,  he 
and  his  successors  make  God  to  plan  the  eternal 
torment  of  His  creatures  before  they  are  born. 
Calvin  surely  gives  the  process  its  finishing  touch 
in  his  decretum  horrihile,  which  we  had  better  give 
in  his  exact  words  :  "  Non  pari  conditione  creantur 
omnes ;  sed  ahis  vita  aeterna,  ahis  damnatio 
aeterna,  prseordinatur."  "  All  are  not  created  in 
an  equal  condition,  for  some  are  preordained  to 
eternal  fife  and  others  to  eternal  damnation." 
But  perhaps  this  is  not  the  finishing  touch,  which 
may  properly  be  apportioned  to  our  Anglican 
Pearson,  who,  in  his  work  on  the  Creed,  tells  us 
that  "  in  the  reprobate  and  damned  souls  the  spot 
of  sin  remaineth  in  its  perfect  die  ;  the  dominion  of 
sin  continueth  in  its  absolute  power  ;  the  guilt  of 
sin  abideth  in  a  perpetual  obhgation  to  eternal 
pains." 

Altogether  a  very  pretty  gospel  to  oft'er  to  our 
poor  humanity  !  Assuredly  the  earher  Protestant- 
ism did  not  shine  in  its  doctrine  of  God  !  It  is 
curious  to  notice  how  Rome,  while  holding  specula- 
tively to  these  implications  concerning  God,  man 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  67 

and  sin,  in  its  practical  teaching  mitigated  these 
horrors  in  a  fashion  pecuUarly  its  own.  God  the 
Implacable  was  to  be  bought  off  by  a  pecuniary 
arrangement  with  His  agents  the  priests.  It 
devised  that  system  of  pardons  and  "  saleable 
exemptions "  as  Erasmus,  himself  a  Catholic, 
termed  them,  by  which,  as  he  goes  on  to  say, 
"  Any  notorious  highwayman,  any  plundering 
soldier,  or  any  bribe-taking  judge,  shall  disburse 
some  part  of  their  august  gains,  and  so  think 
all  their  grossest  impieties  sufficiently  accounted 
for;  so  many  perjuries,  lusts,  drunken  bouts, 
quarrels,  bloodsheds,  treacheries  and  all  sorts  of 
debaucheries,  shall  all  be,  as  it  were,  struck  a 
bargain  for,  and  such  a  contract  made  as  if  they 
had  paid  off  all  arrears,  and  might  now  begin  upon 
a  new  scale." 

It  is  not  thus  we  have  learned  Christ.  Catholic 
and  Protestant  alike  have  here  blundered  fatally 
away  from  His  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood.  The 
infinitude  of  God,  if  He  be  Father,  in  its  relation  to 
transgression  is  surely  first  of  all  an  infinitude  of 
forgiveness,  pity  and  love  !  If  "  unto  seventy  times 
seven  "  is  the  measure  of  man's  patience  with  the 
wrongdoer,  how  shall  the  same  work  out  of  the 
Divine  patience  ?  To  suppose  that  God's  nature 
and  feeling  can  change  utterly  to  a  man  at  the 
moment  of  his  death  is  to  suppose  a  child's  faUing 
to  sleep  were  enough  to  turn  its  mother  into 
its  murderess.  The  wrath  of  God  is  always  a 
Father's  wrath  ;  His  punishments  ever  a  means  of 
grace.  "  Zorn  ist  der  Liebe  zweite,  heiss^re  Flamme,^^ 
says  beautifully  a  German  poet.  "  Wrath  is  a  second 


58  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

love,  its  hotter  flame."  To  believe  other,  to  believe 
that  sin  and  punishment  are  everlasting,  is  to 
believe  in  Zoroaster's  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  to 
believe  the  devil  is  as  strong  as  God. 

At  this  point  some  practical  questions  emerge. 
Sin,  as  we  have  seen,  is  at  all  points  related  to  law, 
but  is  there  in  this  sphere  a  law  which  is  one  and 
universal  ?     Is  the  human  heart  in  contact  every- 
where with  the  same  moral  code  ?     At  first  sight 
the  exact  contrary  would  seem  the  case.     We  remem- 
ber Pascal's  mot  about  right  on  one  side  the  Pyrenees 
being  wrong  on  the  other.     Ethnology  opens  to  us 
the  widest  divergence  of  moral  theory  and  practice. 
There  are  tribes  that  hold  cannibalism  as  part  of 
their    reUgion.     What    common    ground    between 
our  view  of  sin  and  that  of  the  Indian  thug,  or 
of  the  brave  who  exhibits  the  scalps  he  has  taken 
as  a  certificate  of  character  ?     But  the  comparison 
here  is  surely  more  apparent  than  real.     It  affects 
in  no  way  the  existence  of  that  universal  moral 
law  which,  in  the  Christian  position,  is  the  ground  of 
its  doctrine  of  sin.     The  human  dissonances  here 
are  evidence  not   of  a   confusion   of  laws  but   of 
varying  stages  of  development.     To  take  a  com- 
parison   from    music.     Could    anything    be    more 
bemldering  as  a  study  in  men's  views  of  musical 
theory  and  practice  than  what  we  find  actually 
to-day    among    different    peoples  ?     What    com- 
munity between  the  hideous  uproar  which  dehghts 
the   African   savage   and,    say,    the   Eroica    Sym- 
phony ?     And  yet  who  will  deny  that  music  rests 
upon  a  harmonic  law  which  is  universal,  rooted  in 
the  inmost  nature  of  things,  there  before  all  the 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  59 

worlds  ?  That  the  same  rule  holds  in  morals  is 
seen  in  this,  that  amongst  the  different  peoples 
as  mind,  conscience  and  personality  develop  there 
is,  keeping  step  with  the  process,  an  ever  growing 
approximation  of  ethical  idea. 

But  the  question  of  questions  to-day  concerning 
sin  is  that  of  free-will.  Are  men  really  responsible 
for  their  actions,  or  are  they  simply  links  in  a  chain 
of  irresistibly  working  forces  ?  Is  our  notion  of 
freedom  an  illusion,  like  that — to  use  Spinoza's 
illustration — of  a  stone  flung  into  the  air  and  imagin- 
ing that  it  is  flying  ?  If  the  latter,  the  doctrine  of 
sin  in  the  Christian  sense  falls,  of  course,  to  the 
ground,  for  if  man  cannot  help  being  what  he  is, 
or  doing  what  he  does,  there  is  no  guilt  in  his  deed. 
Atonement  would  be  out  of  place,  and  punishment 
a  monstrous  cruelty.  It  is  curious  to  note  how 
thought  on  this  theme  has  swayed  backwards  and 
forwards  throughout  the  Christian  centuries.  Theo- 
logy has  time  and  again  denied  freedom  to  the  will. 
Irenseus,  long  before  Augustine,  has  a  strong  doc- 
trine of  predestination,  while  Methodius  speaks 
against  it.  At  the  Reformation,  Luther  wrote  his 
"  De  Arbitrio  Servo  "  against  Erasmus,  who  con- 
tended for  freedom.  While  Calvin  and  Luther,  and 
Jonathan  Edwards  after  them,  argued  against 
freewill  in  the  interests  of  evangehcal  faith, 
we  have  in  our  own  day  the  spectacle  of  rehgion 
fighting  for  free-will,  as  part  of  its  very  life, 
against  the  new  predestination  of  scientific  materi- 
aUsm. 

The  doctrine  of  Helvetius  in  the  eighteenth  century 
that   "  all  men  are  what  they  must  be  ;    a  fool 


60  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

produces  follies  just  as  a  wild  shrub  produces  sour 
berries,"  has  been  reproduced  under  a  new,  pro- 
fessedly scientific  form  by  physicists  of  the  type  of 
Buchner  and  Haeckel.  Human  action,  according 
to  them,  is  a  product  of  predetermining  causes  as 
natural  and  as  inevitable  as  the  production  of  a 
crystal  or  a  salt.  Thought  is  a  function  of  the 
brain  ;  will  is  controlled  by  motive  ;  by  the  neces- 
sary reaction  of  a  character  transmitted  through 
heredity  upon  an  external  stimulus.  Your  deed 
to-day  is  one  of  a  chain  of  effects  traceable  back- 
wards in  unbroken  succession  to  the  attractions 
and  repulsions  of  the  primordial  atom. 

It  is  an  extraordinary  feature  of  this  teaching 
that  it  has  been  presented,  not  only  as  a  truth  of 
science,    but    as    a    gospel    of    liberation.     And    a 
wonderful  relief  truly  for  rascahty  that  it  should 
henceforth   have  not  to  blame  but   only  to  pity 
itself  !     "  Gentlemen,   I   am   a   martyr   of  circum- 
stance ;   I  am  the  victim  of  heredity  and  unfavour- 
able social  conditions  !  "     With  this  as  his  appeal 
to  society  the  scapegrace  imagines  that  the  new 
doctrine  will  let  him  off  much  more  easily  than  the 
old.     What  he  does  not  perceive  is  the  under  side  of 
the  argument.     Between  the  Christian  word  which 
says,  "  Thou  hast  sinned  :   repent,"   and  this  other 
which  annihilates  sin,  there  is  really  all  the  difference 
between  hope  and  despair.     The  Bibhcal  treatment 
may  seem  stern  and  severe.     It  tells  the  delinquent 
what  it  thinks  of  him.     But  its  very  condemnation 
is  a  promise.     It  holds  in  it  the  suggestion  of  remedy. 
"  You  are  wrong,  because  you  can  do  better.     And 
in  repentance  and  grace  and  the  nevv"  resolve  you 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  61 

can  find  a  way  out."  Compare  this,  in  the  matter  of 
help  and  hope,  with  a  doctrine  which  tells  a  man 
that  his  degradation,  the  vileness  to  which  he  has 
sunk,  and  for  which  he  cannot  help  cursing  him- 
self, is  just  the  thing  he  must  be,  one  of  the  results 
for  which  the  whole  world-process  from  the  begin- 
ning has  been  working  ! 

But  this   teaching,  as  the  best  minds  both  in 
science  and  philosophy  are  now  discovering,  is  not 
only  wretched  in  result  but  wrong  in  its  facts.     The 
attempt  to  reduce  everything  to  energy  and  matter, 
"  Kraft  und  Stoff,''    as   Buchner  phrases   it,   has 
signally  broken  down.     The  thought  k-ngdom  in 
which   man   lives    cannot    be    expressed    in   terms 
of  matter.     The  region  of  brain  cells,  corpuscles, 
absorptions,  exudations,  respirations,  is  one  thing  ; 
the  region  of  emotion,  of  ecstasy,  of  c^  ntrition,  of 
love,    is    quite    another.     The    measurements    of 
this  are  of  no  use  in  that.     And  the  arguments 
that  apply  there  have  no  application  here.    And 
this  failure  of  correspondence  between  tl-e  matter- 
world  and  the  mind-world  applies  equally  to  the 
will.     You  cannot  argue  about  it  in  the  terms  of  the 
material  w^orld.     It  is  in  a  realm  of  law  truly,  but 
of  a  different  law.     For  any  real  knowledge  of  the 
will  we  have  to  come  right  away  from  the  foreign 
region  of  matter  and  force  to  the  facts  and  sequences 
of  the   psychical  realm.     We   have   to   study   the 
will  by  what  it  does.     We  cannot  explain  it  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  a  primary  fact  of  consciousness 
and    so    beyond    explanation.     To    "  explain "     a 
thing  is  to  refer  it  to  a  primary,  but  you  cannot 
explain    a    primary    because    there    is    nothing    to 


62  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

refer  it  to.  That  we  will  a  thing  cannot  be  demon- 
strated. It  simply  is  so  ;  it  is  a  thing  which  can 
only  be  proved  by  being  experienced.  As  Dr. 
Johnson  put  it,  "  all  theory  is  against  free-will ; 
all  experience  is  for  it." 

It  is  precisely  on  this  experience  of  the  will  in 
action — just  as  on  the  experience  of  sight,  as  a 
primary   sensation — that   we    have   to   found    our 
whole  knowledge  of  it.     We  have  to  begin  with  the 
fact  as  given  in  consciousness.     What  we  find  next 
is  that  the  whole  moral  world  starts  from  this  fact 
as  its  centre,  and  groups  its  laws  around  it.   Consider, 
in   relation   to   free-will,    the   formation   of   man's 
moral    vocabulary.     The    strongest   words    in   the 
language  ;    those  which  bite  most  deeply  into  the 
heart     of    us  ;    which    are  found    wherever    man 
lives,  acts  and  suffers,  spring  all  from  this  fountain 
of  man's  moral  freedom  and  responsibihty.     When 
we  speak  of  a  man's  merit  or  demerit ;    when  we 
characterise  him  as  villain  or  saint,  we  are  naming 
the  bottom  facts  of  him.     And  no  juggling  with 
determinism,  "  scientific  "  or  other,  deprives  these 
words   of  their  awful   strength,   of   their  absolute 
finality.     Destroy  their  meaning,  and  you  destroy 
the  meaning  of  life. 

Solvitur  ambulando.  The  will  proves  itself  free 
by  acting  as  free.  No  study  of  the  outside  machinery 
of  brain  or  nerves,  no  calculations  carried  on  in  the 
region  of  matter  and  force,  really  touch  the  question. 
The  will,  in  its  movement  up  or  down  shows  itself 
as  belonging  to  that  inner  moral  and  spiritual 
realm  in  which  man  dwells,  and  where  he  finds  his 
true  being.     And  it  is  in  the  way  that  Christianity 


OUR  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN  63 

meets  man  here  ;  in  the  way  it  meets  his  sense  of 
loss  and  failure,  of  guilt  and  disgrace,  with  its 
august  economy  of  sacrifice  and  redemption  ;  by 
its  offers  to  him  in  his  extremity  of  a  Divine  and 
gracious  forgiveness,  that  it  establishes  itself  as 
the  eternal  answer  to  his  eternal  problem. 


VI 
The    Doctrine  of    Sacrifice 

It  has  been  made  a  subject  of  reproach  to  modern 
reUgious  thinking  that  while  using  the  terms  of  the 
great  Christian  doctrines  it  has  emptied  them  of 
their  meaning.  It  is,  of  course,  quite  possible  to 
do  that.  But  let  it,  at  the  same  time,  be  remembered 
that  no  term  in  theology  can  keep  an  unbroken 
sameness  of  significance.  The  innovators  here  are 
not  the  "  higher  critics  "  or  "  leveUing  rationalists," 
but  that  "  time-spirit,"  greatest  of  revolutionaries, 
whose  eternal  movement  no  bulwarks  we  may- 
raise  can  resist.  Nowhere  is  that  movement  and 
its  results  more  conspicuously  displayed  than  in 
this  theme  of  sacrifice,  which  we  propose  now  to 
consider.  The  word  has  changed  its  meaning 
because  the  thing  has  changed  its  meaning  ;  changed, 
not  in  the  sense  of  contradiction,  but  in  that  of 
advance  and  enlargement ;  changed,  because  new 
and  higher  elements  have  come  into  it,  a  deeper  and 
more  spiritual  sense. 

It  is  in  a  study  of  this  sort  that  we  see  at  work 
one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in  human  history. 
That  history,  surveyed  from  the  beginning,  is  one  of 
the  Divine  ideas  which,  as  it  were,  have  incarnated 

64 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SACRIFICE  65 

themselves  in  man,  and  which  each  generation  has 
tried  to  express  in  its  own  fashion.  In  the  dawn 
of  civiHsation  these  ideas  take  on  the  lowhest  and 
most  uncouth  shapes,  simply  because  man  at  that 
stage  is  lowly  and  uncouth.  But  as  the  ages  roll, 
we  see  them  assuming  ever  higher  forms,  whose 
majestic  proportions  compel  us  finally  to  recognise 
their  exalted  source.  It  has  been  one  of  the 
stupidest  blunders  of  a  superficial  criticism  to 
imagine  that  it  has  explained  away  Christianity  by 
tracing  back  its  central  ideas  to  savage  origins  ; 
to  suppose  that  its  doctrines  of  sin,  retribution, 
sacrifice,  atonement  are  done  with  when  it  has  been 
shown  that  they  have  their  roots  in  primitive 
institutions  and  barbarous  beliefs.  If  they  have, 
we  ask,  what  then  ?  Is  not  all  this  exactly  what 
we  should  expect  in  a  cosmic  system  which,  in  all 
its  departments,  works  from  below  upwards  ?  An 
oak  is  not  an  acorn  because  it  comes  from  one.  A 
religious  system  is  to  be  judged  not  by  its  human 
beginnings,  but  by  the  thing  it  has  grown  to,  and 
the  kind  of  future  which  seems  to  open  before  it. 

Rehgion  from  the  first  has  been  full  of  the  doctrine 
of  sacrifice.  But  how  far  we  have  travelled  from  its 
earUer  conception  would  perhaps  best  be  illustrated 
by  contrasting  a  modern  function  of  worship  with 
one  of  two  or  three  thousand  years  ago.  Imagine 
the  consternation  of  a  London  congregation  if  its 
presiding  minister,  say  the  Dean  of  Westminster  or 
Dr.  Chfford,  instead  of  following  the  accustomed 
order  of  service,  should  suddenly  hark  back  upon 
that  Old  Testament  usage  which  we  read  of  so  com- 
placently— should   introduce  a  sheep  or  bullock  to 


66  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the  chancel,  and  there  and  then  proceed  to  slaughter 
it !     Nothing   indeed    is   more   difficult   for   us    of 
to-day  than  to  comprehend  or  even  imagine  that 
earlier  state  of  mind.     We  can  understand  neither 
the  men  nor  their  God.     What   meeting-point    is 
there  between  our  view  and  that  of  Homer  when,  in 
the  Iliad,  he  declares  as  a  religious  commonplace, 
"  The  gods,  too,  may  be  turned  from  their  purpose  ; 
and  men  pray  to  them  and  avert  their  wrath  by 
sacrifices  and  soothing  entreaties,  and  by  libations 
and  the  odour  of  fat,  when  they  have  sinned  and 
transgressed !  "     Imagine    the    kind    of    spiritual 
world  in  which  Agamemnon  lived  when,  at  Aulis, 
as  pictured  by  Euripides,  he  is  prepared  to  plunge  his 
sword  into  his  loved  daughter,  Iphigenia,  because  the 
prophet  Calchas  informs  him  this  is  the  only  way 
to   propitiate   the   gods  ;     to   make   them   change 
the  wind  which  keeps  back  the  Greek  fleet  from  its 
voyage  to  Ilium  !     Yet  that  was  as  far  as  men  had 
got  in  that  age  in  their  notion  of  sacrifice. 

But  history  shows  us  the  steady  march  of  ideas 
on  this  theme.  The  light  as  it  dawns  falls  always 
first  on  the  highest  summits.  In  Israel,  while  the 
masses  were  pretty  much  in  the  condition  depicted 
in  Homer  and  the  Greek  tragedies,  the  great  souls 
were  opening  to  a  truer  conception.  Their  view 
of  God  had  heightened  „  and  with  it  their  view  of 
sacrifice.  To  the  Hebrew  prophets  belongs  the 
glory  of  lifting  it  out  of  the  region  of  outward 
ceremony  to  that  of  character  and  the  inward  life. 
The  magnificent  outburst  of  Micah,  which  struck 
Huxley  as  containing  rehgion's  highest  and  final 
expression,  "  What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SACRIFICE         67 

but  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God  ?  "  may,  indeed,  well  be  taken  as  the 
classic  instance  of  prophetic  inspiration. 

The  movement,  however,  did  not  stop  there. 
The  soul  of  humanity  in  its  slow  evolution  had  yet 
deeper,  sublimer  elements  to  disclose  than  that  of 
mere  personal  uprightness.  It  began  to  be  realised 
that  man's  hfe,  in  its  full  expression,  did  not  end  in 
himself.  It  was  mingled  inextricably  with  that  of 
the  race.  All  that  was  in  him  would  enter  into 
humanity  ;  all  that  was  in  humanity  would  enter 
into  him.  More  :  in  some  high  but  dimly-discerned 
manner  his  life  streamed  out  to  the  Infinite, 
and  touched  and  was  touched  by  the  Unseen 
Powers.  Those  rudest  sacrifices  of  which  we  have 
spoken  meant  that.  The  animal  offerings,  so 
revolting  to  us,  were,  after  all,  a  religion,  a  true  one 
as  far  as  it  went.  They  meant  an  intercourse  of 
giving  and  receiving  between  man  and  God  ;  they 
meant  that  religion  was  for  one  thing  a  renunciation, 
a  surrender  of  things  that  were  valued.  But  now 
came  a  deeper  note.  Through  experience,  and 
through  the  soul's  inward  working,  it  began  to  be 
understood  how  vicarious  suffering  formed  a  condi- 
tion of  the  higher  life  of  the  race.  It  began  to  be 
seen  that  somehow  this  element  was  rooted  in  the 
nature  of  things,  and  in  the  very  heart  of  God.  It 
was  in  Israel's  later  period  that  this  view  found 
expression  in  the  Second  Isaiah,  in  the  sublime 
picture  of  the  "  suffering  servant  "  of  Jehovah  as 
depicted  in  the  fifty-third  chapter.  Still  later  we 
see  how  the  idea  has  taken  root  in  that  prayer  of 
the  dying  heroes  in  the  fourth  Book  of  Maccabees, 


68  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

"  Make  my  blood  a  sacrifice  of  purification,  and 
accept  my  soul  in  place  of  theirs"  (the  people's). 

That  which  appears  as  root  and  germ  in  the  Old 
Testament  flowers  into  glorious  perfection  in  the 
New.  The  Christian  Gospel  is  above  all  things  a 
Gospel  of  vicarious  sacrifice,  of  a  love  that  suffers, 
that  gives  itself  for  the  race.  Its  centre  is  the  death 
of  Jesus.  By  a  sure  instinct  theology  has  built 
itseK  round  that  fact.  Yet  the  marvellous  thing 
is  that  no  one  of  the  participators  in  that  event 
suspected  there  was  any  theology  in  it !  The  Jewish 
priests,  the  Roman  procurator,  the  soldiery,  the 
spectators  were  all  theologians  of  a  sort.  They  were 
famiUar  with  a  doctrine  and  practice  of  sacrifice. 
But  they  saw  no  example  of  it  here.  What  they 
saw  was  simply  an  execution,  the  carrying  out  of  a 
legal  sentence.  Even  the  earliest  Christian  thought, 
as  exhibited  in  the  reputed  sermon  of  Peter  in 
the  second  of  Acts,  seemed  not  as  yet  to  have 
grasped  the  significance  of  the  Cross.  The  death  is 
charged  home  on  the  Jews  as  a  wickedness,  but 
it  is  not  the  death  so  much  as  the  resurrection  which 
the  speaker  urges  as  reason  for  his  hearers'  repent- 
ance and  acceptance  of  Christ. 

It  was  reserved  for  St.  Paul,  whose  deep,  intense 
personality  and  marvellous  spiritual  experience 
made  him,  alike  by  nature  and  grace,  the  predestined 
organ  of  this  higher  revelation — it  was,  we  say, 
reserved  for  St.  Paul  to  catch  the  full  glory  of  the 
death  on  Calvary.  It  was  by  a  flash  of  inspiration 
that  the  apostle,  inheriting  as  he  did  the  full  Jewish 
tradition,  familiar  mth  all  its  ritual  of  expiatory 
sacrifice,  saw  now  its  relation  to  the  Christ  who 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SACRIFICE  69 

had  died.  Just  as  in  His  teaching  Jesus  had  so 
divinely  spirituaHsed  the  Jewish  law,  so  now  in 
His  death  He  had,  and  yet  more  marvellously, 
spirituaHsed  its  ritual  of  sacrifice.  The  truth  so 
rudely  adumbrated  by  the  priest  and  his  victim 
was  to  gleam  henceforth  from  the  Cross  in  a  new, 
diviner  setting.  "  He  gave  HimseK  for  us,  the 
Just  for  the  unjust."  Here  was  the  final,  ultimate 
expression  of  the  truth  wrought  into  the  very 
spiritual  fabric  of  the  universe  :  that  humanity  is 
redeemed  by  suffering  love  ;  that  it  cUmbs  through 
sorrow,  and  chiefly  by  sorrow  of  the  Highest  for  the 
lowest. 

The  difference  between  rehgion  and  theology  is 
perhaps  nowhere  more  strikingly  exhibited  than  in 
the  successive  theories  of  the  Cross  that  have  fol- 
lowed each  other  through  the  Christian  centuries. 
When  good  men  to-day  are  accused  of  tampering 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  we  are  inclined 
to  ask,  "  Which  doctrine  ?  "  The  religion  of  the 
Cross  is  one  thing  ;  the  doctrine  of  it  quite  another. 
If  men  are  saved  or  lost  by  their  correct  or  incorrect 
theology  of  it,  then  whole  ages  of  the  Church — 
ages  which  numbered  its  noblest  martyrs  and  con- 
fessors— are  surely  past  praying  for.  What  has 
modern  orthodoxy  to  say  of  that  view  which  held 
its  ground  for  nigh  a  thousand  years,  that  Christ's 
death  was  a  ransom  paid  to  the  devil,  and  that  the 
resurrection  was  a  kind  of  trick  by  which  Satan  was 
finally  defrauded  ?  Think  of  a  man  hke  Ambrose 
of  Milan,  one  of  the  noblest  saints  and  teachers  of 
the  fourth  century,  who  brought  the  cruel  Theo- 
dosius  to  his  knees,  who  was  the  spiritual  father  of 


70  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the  young  Augustine,  being  able  to  pen  a  sentence 
like  this  :  Oportuit  hanc  fraudem  Diabolo  fieri,  ut 
sicsciperet  corpus  Dominus  Jesus.  "  It  was  necessary 
in  order  that  this  fraud  should  be  carried  out  upon 
the  devil  that  the  Lord  Jesus  should  take  a  body  "  • 
Can  we  imagine  a  theology  of  the  Cross  more 
grotesque  or  impossible  ?  And  yet  who  amongst  us 
has  known  more  effectually  than  this  fourth-century 
saint  the  rehgion  of  the  Cross,  as  felt  in  the  soul  and 
reahsed  in  the  life  ? 

A  similar  thing  may  be  said  of  the  quid  pro  quo 
theory  of  Anselm  in  his  "  Cur  Deus  Homo,^'  a 
theory  which,  strangely  enough,  was  in  its  main 
features  accepted  and  taught  by  the  Reformation 
leaders.  This  theology,  which  regards  Christ  as 
having,  by  His  passion  and  death,  paid  in  suffering 
the  exact  equivalent  of  human  guilt,  and  thus 
satisfied  the  claims  of  God's  justice  and  offended 
honour,  is,  as  competent  theologians  have  repeatedly 
pointed  out,  not  so  much  a  doctrine  of  grace  as  a 
negation  of  grace.  For  if  in  Christ's  death  man's 
debt  has  been  fully  paid  he  can  claim  his  salvation 
not  as  a  matter  of  grace  from  God,  but  as  a  matter  of 
right.  If  salvation  is  a  debtor  and  creditor  account, 
when  the  adverse  balance  has  been  wiped  out  the 
creditor  has  no  further  locus  standi.  He  has 
assuredly  no  right  to  talk  of  "  grace  "  as  extended 
to  the  debtor. 

This  mechanical  view,  which  was  constructed  out 
of  the  Roman  law  and  the  feudal  system,  has  no 
ground  in  Scripture,  in  expqjrience,  or  in  the  nature 
of  things.  Augustine  saw  this  ;  saw  that  the  Atone- 
ment was  no  mere  payment,  no  mere  appeasement. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SACRIFICE  71 

Says  he  in  the  De  Trinitate,  "  Would  the  Father  have 
delivered  up  His  Son  for  us  if  He  had  not  been 
already  appeased  ?  I  see  that  the  Father  loved  us 
before  the  Son  died  for  us." 

In  sum  :  Sacrifice  is  an  integral  law  of  the  spiritual 
Ufe.  Its  root  is  in  the  heart  of  God  ;  its  expression 
is  the  reUgious  history  of  man.  Beginning  in 
lowliest  forms  it  reaches  its  supreme  glory  in  the 
Cross.  The  interpretations  of  the  Cross  are  at 
best  only  imperfect  endeavours  after  a  Divine 
mystery.  When  in  our  personal  or  pubHc  life  we 
turn  aside  from  the  law  of  sacrifice  we  deny  the 
Cross  and  desert  God.  In  drinking  the  bitter  sweet 
of  this  cup  the  soul  finds  its  uttermost  self.  Along 
this  line  is  achieved  aU  inner  progress.  All  the 
heroisms  draw  here  their  inspiration.  From  this 
source  flows  the  power  that  redeems  the  world. 


VII 
On  Bein^  Saved 

It  is  a  saying  of  Renan  that  "  at  the  outset  a  new 
rehgion  is  often  but  a  new  kind  of  Hterature."  He 
applies  the  remark  to  Mohammedanism  and  the 
Koran,  but  it  is  suggestive  also  of  things  nearer 
home.  The  state  of  religion,  for  instance,  in  our- 
selves and  the  society  to  which  we  belong,  has 
hardly  a  surer  test  than  the  literary  one.  The 
secret  of  our  spiritual  condition  is  revealed  in  the 
significance  we  attach  to  words.  The  faith  of  a 
people  or  a  time,  whether  a  growing,  a  stagnant,  or 
a  decadent  faith,  shows  in  the  changes  that  have 
come  in  its  word-symbols.  The  change  will, 
usually,  not  be  in  the  words  themselves.  The 
vocables  are  there,  permanent  residents  in  the 
language,  spelled  and  pronounced  with  smallest 
variation  from  one  generation  to  another.  The 
difference  hes  in  the  new  meanings  that  have  crept 
into  them,  in  the  old  meanings  that  have  dropped 
out,  in  the  effect  they  produce  upon  us  as  compared 
with  their  effect  upon  our  fathers. 

The  remark  applies  to  the  whole  of  our 
religious  phraseology,  but  to  none  of  it  with 
greater  force  than  to  that  with  which  we  propose 


ON  BEING  SAVED  73 

here  specially  to  deal.  "Salvation,"  "  being  saved," 
and  the  alUed  words  and  phrases  form  to-day, 
as  they  have  formed  in  all  the  Christian  ages,  an 
integral  and  vital  part  in  our  Church  vocabulary. 
The  all-important  question  is,  What  do  we  now  mean 
by  them  ?  That  we  mean  something  is  evident. 
The  youngest  and  perhaps  the  most  vigorous  of  our 
Christian  organisations,  the  "  Salvation  Army," 
has  found  its  title  in  them.  Yes,  we  mean  something 
but  what  we  mean  is  the  question.  Are  we,  for 
instance,  in  the  mental  position,  on  this  matter, 
which  dictated  the  phrase  extra  ecdesiam  nulla 
salus  (outside  the  Church  is  no  salvation)  ?  Are 
we  with  Hooker  in  his  saying  that  "  Scripture 
teacheth  all  supernatural  revealed  truth,  without 
the  knowledge  whereof  salvation  cannot  he  attained  "  ? 
Or  are  we  to-day  anywhere  near  the  frame  of 
mind  which  almost  in  our  own  generation  inspired 
the  cry  of  Newman,  in  his  agony  at  Littlemore  : 
"  The  simple  question  is.  Can  I  be  saved  in  the 
EngUsh  Church  ?  Am  I  in  safety  were  I  to  die 
to-night  ?  " 

To  ask  our  question  is  to  answer  it.  No  ;  we 
are  not  in  the  mental  attitude  wliich  inspired  these 
utterances.  The  standpoint  has  shifted.  The  new 
generation  is  beginning  to  inquire,  indeed,  with  a 
certain  surprise  why  such  questions  should  ever 
have  been  mooted.  "  What,"  it  asks,  "  has  man, 
here  soHdly  fixed  on  this  planet,  to  be  saved  from  ? 
Or  from  whom  ?  Has  he  an  enemy  then  ?  Or 
is  not  this  universe  on  the  whole  a  beneficent 
universe,  well-intentioned  towards  him  ?  Have 
we  not  in  all  this  phraseology  a  misconception  of 


74  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the  meaning  of  life  ?  Are  we  then  a  shipwrecked 
crew,  whose  one  business  is  to  leave  a  doomed 
vessel  and  to  scramble  by  some  means  to  shore  ;  or 
is  it  not  rather  that  we  are  no  shipwrecked  crew, 
but  comfortably  ashore,  planted,  indeed,  in  a 
magnificent  inheritance,  with  invitation  to  cultivate 
it,  to  open  its  treasures  and  enjoy  them  ?  Is  not 
this  quest  of  '  salvation  '  an  obsession  of  the  past, 
from  which  it  is  time  we  were  reUeved  ?  " 

There  is  a  certain  basis  for  these  queries.  They 
serve,  indeed,  to  bring  home  to  us  the  fact  that  some 
of  the  elements  which  entered  into  the  idea  of 
salvation  in  earlier  ages  have  lost  their  force  in 
ours.  Conceptions  that  still  hold  their  ground  in 
official  theology  are  (and  it  is  time  we  recognised  the 
fact)  simply  survivals  of  an  earlier,  savage  state. 
Man  is  not  only  an  active,  working  force.  He  is 
also  a  museum.  He  carries  in  him  the  relics  of  his 
immeasurable  past.  And  one  of  the  most  formid- 
able of  these  remainders  is  Fear.  In  the  far-off  ages 
from  which  we  have  come  it  was  a  terrible  thing  to 
be  a  man.  Not  only  had  he,  with  his  scanty 
equipment,  to  fight  against  savage  beasts  and  the 
rage  of  the  elements  ;  he  had  by  day  and  night  the 
far  more  awesome  conflict  with  the  unknown.  This 
unknown  was  not  only  far  mightier  than  he  ;  it 
seemed  to  him  also  to  be  malignant.  The  darkened 
sky,  the  gleam  of  lightning,  the  thunder's  roar,  the 
earthquake's  upheaval,  sickness,  pain,  death,  what 
were  these  if  not  the  anger  of  the  Powers  behind  ? 
The  natural  causes  were  all  undiscovered,  and  it 
is  a  law  of  the  primitive  mind  that  where  natural 
causes  are  unknown  events  are  attributed  to  the 


ON  BEING  SAVED  75 

agency  of  wills  like  its  own.  Hence  there  grew  in 
the  early  world  an  enormous  Fear,  which  ruled  its 
actions,  created  much  of  its  rehgion,  and  which 
still  in  strange,  fantastic  ways  asserts  its  sway  over 
us.  Against  our  clearest  reason  and  firmest  per- 
suasion we  are  still  haunted  by  the  idea  that  the 
universe  is  mahgnant.  In  an  empty  house  at 
midnight  it  is  difficult  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  feehng 
that  the  darkness  conceals  a  foe,  that  the  creak  of  a 
door  is  a  stealthy  footstep,  that  from  the  gloom 
some  ghastly  shape  may  emerge.  The  past,  which 
still  holds  its  ground  in  the  back  chambers  of  the 
brain,  would  persuade  us  that  'tis  a  demon-haunted 
world,  where  not  God  but  the  devil  rules. 

Clearly  we  do  need  to  be  saved,  to  be  saved  from 
fear.  We  are  not  yet  persuaded  that  this  is  a 
cheerful,  homely,  well-meaning  universe,  whose 
powers,  if  strict  in  their  working,  are  neverthe- 
less beneficent  and  not  diabolic.  Not  yet  are  we 
deHvered  from  the  mental  condition  which  Plutarch 
—one,  surely,  of  the  sanest,  as  well  as  devoutest, 
minds  of  antiquity— has  pictured  for  us  in  his 
"  De  Su2?erstitione  "  :  "  In  the  very  sleep  of  her 
victims,  as  though  they  were  in  the  realms  of  the 
impious,  superstition  raises  horrible  spectres  and 
monstrous  phantoms,  and  whirls  the  miserable 
soul  about,  and  persecutes  it."  At  death,  he  con- 
tinues, superstition  makes  "  deep  gates  of  hell  to 
yawn,  and  headlong  streams  of  at  once  fire  and 
gloom  are  opened,  and  darkness  with  its  many 
phantoms  encompasses  .  .  .  and  chasms  and 
dens  full  of  innumerable  miseries."  We  have  not 
yet   emerged   from    that   region.     Salvation   is   to 


76  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

multitudes  of  us  a  theological  device  against  theo- 
logical phantoms.  We  are  not  yet  convinced  that 
God  is  Love.  Newman,  we  see,  had  such  an  opinion 
of  Him  as  to  beUeve  Him  capable  of  damning  him 
to  eternal  torments  on  the  score  of  the  difference 
between  Anglo-Catholicism  and  Roman  Catholicism. 
At  a  time  when,  in  our  criminal  system,  the  in- 
fliction of  pain  for  pain's  sake  is  rejected  as  barbar- 
ous ;  when  our  entire  action  in  this  department  is 
directed  to  reformation  and  prevention,  we  still 
go  on  attributing  to  Deity  the  most  fiendish  and 
senseless  of  penal  codes.  We  do  this,  we  say, 
officially.  Practically  most  of  us  have  probably 
reached  the  position  of  that  fine  old  Christian  lay- 
man Sir  Thomas  Browne  :  "  That  most  terrible 
term  (hell)  hath  never  detained  me  from  sin,  nor  do 
I  OAve  any  good  action  to  the  name  thereof.  I  fear 
God,  yet  am  not  afraid  of  Him.  His  mercies 
make  me  ashamed  of  my  sins  before  His  judgments 
afraid  thereof."  We  have  a  certain  sympathy 
with  the  woman  whom  Diderot  speaks  of  in  "  Sur 
les  Femmes,''''  who  promenaded  the  streets  of  Alex- 
andria, a  torch  in  one  hand  and  a  ewer  of  water  in 
the  other,  and  who  cried,  "  I  would  burn  heaven 
with  this  torch,  and  extinguish  hell  with  this  water, 
in  order  that  man  might  love  God  for  Himself 
alone." 

Plainly  our  salvation,  as  theologically  conceived, 
has  survivals  in  it  which  we  were  well  rid  of  ; 
that  are  not  Divine,  no,  nor  human,  but  only  sub- 
human. Nevertheless,  salvation  is  a  living  word, 
expressive  of  a  most  real  and  Hving  thing.  There  is 
no  man  of  us  but  needs  it,  nor  that  will  not   fail 


ON  BEING  SAVED  77 

without  it.  As  the  outside  Ufe — the  battle  with  the 
elements,  with  circumstance,  with  the  dead  weight 
of  things — demands  our  best  effort,  so  here,  in  the 
inward  life,  victory  comes  only  through  struggle 
and  pain,  the  putting  forth  of  our  utmost  will,  the 
reinforcement  of  other  powers  than  our  own. 
Augustine  found  two  things  in  the  universe,  God  and 
his  own  soul.  Yes,  God  and  the  soul,  and  the 
problem  with  us,  as  with  him,  is  to  adjust  their 
relations.  To  begin  with,  no  man  is  at  peace  till 
he  has  found  God,  and  is  on  right  terms  with  Him. 
Through  all  the  languages  and  all  the  religions  of  men 
we  see  this  emerging  as  their  chief  and  final  business. 
Read  Bunyan's  "  Grace  Abounding  "  and  Carlyle's 
"  Sartor  Resartus,"  and  you  shall  find  their  theme 
the  same.  Their  language,  their  general  cosmic 
outlook,  how  poles  asunder  different !  Yet  the 
deep  essence  of  their  trouble  is,  we  say,  the  same. 
When  the  Tinker  at  the  worst  of  his  distress  wishes 
himself  a  dog  or  a  worm,  he  is  with  Teufelsdrockh 
when  the  "  Everlasting  No  "  had  said  :  "  Behold 
thou  art  fatherless,  outcast,  and  the  Universe  is 
mine  (the  Devil's)."  And  the  joy  of  the  two 
pilgrims  when  they  get  the  "  Spiritual  New  Birth  or 
Baphometic  Fire-baptism,"  and  can  say  "  I  am  not 
thine  but  free,  and  for  ever  hate  thee,"  is  the  same 
joy.  But  New  Birth  and  Fire-baptism,  for  a 
Bunyan  or  a  Teufelsdrockh,  for  you  and  me,  means 
the  conscious  union  of  our  poor  self  with  a  greater 
and  better  self,  the  finding  of  that  Highest  whose 
Witness  has  been  ever  in  us,  and  to  whom  now, 
as  our  refuge  and  strength,  we  joyfully  give  our- 
selves  over.       Christianity,   as  lived,   means  that 


78  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

first  and  last.  The  perfection  of  Jesus  was  the 
perfection  of  His  union  with  God,  and  what  He 
offers  us  is  that  same  Divine  secret.  We  have 
entered  into  it  when  we  can  say  in  our  humble 
measure,  with  Him  in  His  highest  measure,  "  I 
and  my  Father  are  one." 

God  and  the  soul.  Salvation,  working  upward  to 
the  first,  works  downward  next  upon  the  second. 
We  have  to  be  saved  from  ourselves,  and  it  is  a 
tough  business.  Says  Amiel,  "  The  animal  in 
man  becomes  human  only  late  in  the  day,  and  then 
only  in  the  beautiful  souls."  The  Gospel  is,  in  this 
matter,  more  optimistic  than  the  Geneva  philosopher. 
It  proposes  to  make  beautiful  souls  out  of  the 
most  unpromising  materials.  Its  challenge  is  of 
the  boldest,  yet  quite  natural.  It  says  in  effect 
that  the  illimitable  physical  forces  which,  as  we 
discover  their  secret,  are  transforming  our  world  for 
us,  are  matched  by  ilhmitable  spiritual  forces,  which 
in  proportion  as  we  learn  and  obey  their  laws  will 
work  grander  transformations  in  the  kingdom  of 
the  heart.  And  it  is  too  late  in  the  day  to  contest 
this  fact.  The  experiment  has  been  made  a  thou- 
sand times  over,  and  the  results  are  for  anyone  who 
chooses  to  study  them.  They  exhibit  Christianity 
not  as  a  dogmatic  system,  but  as  a  spiritual  force 
that  renovates  and  cleanses  the  soul.  Wesley's 
Kingswood  colliers  showed  its  operation  on  the 
roughest  classes.  For  its  work  on  the  cultured 
take  the  beautiful  words  of  Erasmus  on  Dean 
Colet :  "  He  was  a  man  of  genuine  piety.  He  was 
not  born  with  it.  He  was  naturally  hot,  impetuous, 
and  resentful,  indolent,  fond  of  pleasure,  disposed 


ON  BEING  SAVED  79 

to  make  a  joke  of  everything,  lie  tokl  me  that 
he  had  fought  against  his  faults  with  study,  fasting 
and  prayer,  and  thus  his  whole  soul  was,  in  fact, 
unpolluted  with  the  world's  defilements.  .  .  . 
I  never  knew  a  man  with  a  sunnier  nature."  That 
is  salvation. 

There  remain  two  observations.  First,  the  real 
saving,  as  thus  appears,  is  a  saving  into  character  ; 
from  a  lower  to  a  higher  spiritual  state  of  ourselves. 
But  what  room  does  this  leave  for  the  ceremonies, 
the  priestly  absolutions,  the  sacramental  efficacies, 
the  orthodoxies  by  which  ecclesiasticism  proposes 
to  deliver  us  ?  DeUver  us  from  what  ?  Is  there  not 
at  the  bottom  of  this  whole  business  the  idea  that 
our  great  need  is  to  be  saved  from  God,  an  idea 
that  to  us  at  least  is  the  worst  of  all  blasphemies  ? 
If  ceremony  can  wash  away  sin — turn  a  man  from 
thieving  to  honesty — well  and  good.  If  not,  what 
use  is  it  ?  To  observe  it  as  a  means  of  placating 
God  is  to  resort  to  the  superstition,  begotten  of 
that  old-world  fear  of  which  we  have  spoken, 
which  places  Him,,  whose  name  is  Love,  on  a  level 
with  Thor  and  Woden — with  savage  deities  whose 
wrath  must  be  appeased  by  magic  rites. 

And,  finally,  salvation,  considered  as  the  finding 
of  God  and  the  finding  of  character,  contains  in  it 
the  idea  of  a  Church,  as  part  of  its  method.  Do 
we  not,  indeed,  find  here  the  true  sense  of  that 
otherwise  hard  saying,  "  Outside  the  Church  (that 
is,  outside  a  brotherly  fellowship)  is  no  salvation." 
For  we  cannot  complete  our  character  without 
our  brother's  aid.  All  the  virtues  of  it  suppose  him. 
We  cannot  love  nor  serve  nor  sacrifice  ;   we  cannot 


80  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

cultivate  humility  nor  patience  nor  self-abnegation, 
except  as  members  of  a  society.  We  cannot  find 
our  own  soul  except  in  the  soul  of  our  brother. 
There  is  no  true  joy  that  is  not  a  sharing.  Being 
saved,  then,  is  a  fellowship  with  God  which  unites  us 
by  love  and  service  with  every  soul  that  He  has 
made. 


VIII 
Theology's    Hidden    Factors 

We  have  had  in  these  pages  occasion  to  speak 
more  than  once  of  the  distinction  between  rehgion 
and  theology.  EeUgion  is  a  life  ;  theology  is  the 
attempt  to  explain  that  life.  When  we  have 
reached  the  secret  of  life  in  even  its  humblest 
forms  ; — when  we  can  really  explain  an  amoeba 
or  a  rat — it  will,  perhaps,  be  time  enough  for  us  to 
talk  of  explaining  life  at  its  highest.  Yet  from 
the  beginning  the  attempt  has  been  made,  and  it 
will  continue  to  be  made.  Theology  is  an  old- 
established  business.  And  so  long  as  it  takes  itself 
at  its  true  value  ;  so  long  as  it  is  content  to  recognise 
itself  as  provisional,  as  immeasurably  behind  its 
subject,  we  may  not  only  tolerate,  but  welcome 
it.  It  is  only  when  it  waxes  fat  and  insolent, 
when  it  puts  on  airs  and  talks  as  though  it  knows 
when  it  does  not,  that  it  becomes  an  offence  to 
thinking  men. 

But  taking  theology  in  the  sense  we  have  indi- 
cated, as  the  attempt,  quite  legitimate  in  itself,  to 
explain  the  world  of  spirit  by  the  light  which  each 
age  oSers,  it  is  deeply  interesting  to  note  the 
factors  which  go  to  its  formation.     We  shall  never 

81  6 


82  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

understand  its  dogmas  ;  never  estimate  properly 
their  positive  and  their  relative  value,  until  we 
have  some  idea  of  the  process  of  their  evolution, 
and  of  the  material  that  has  been  built  into  them. 
What  it  is  so  important  to  note,  and  what  we  want 
here  to  try  and  point  out,  is  that  so  much  of  this 
material  is,  to  the  general  eye,  quite  unrecognisable 
as  theology,  at  the  furthest  remove  apparently 
from  the  subject.  Your  theology  is  a  curious  com- 
pound. It  is  well,  as  you  swallow  it,  to  know 
something  of  its  ingredients,  of  who  and  what  helped 
to  knead  them  together. 

Note  first  the  forces  employed  in  the  theological 
movement.  As  an  expression  of  life  theology  is 
bound  to  move,  to  grow,  and  to  change  its  form. 
And  that  because  it  is  a  fundamental  law  of  the  life 
it  deals  with  to  do  these  things  ;  that  is,  to  move,  to 
grow  and  to  change  its  form.  But  the  process  is  a 
slow  one.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  remark  that 
nowhere  so  much  as  in  theology  is  the  progress  of 
ideas  so  difficult  and  so  halting.  What  is  not  so 
clearly  seen  is  the  set  of  causes  that  produce  this 
retardation.  A  study  of  them  should  restrain  our 
impatience,  both  with  men  and  systems.  For 
it  shows  us  how  natural  they  are  ;  how  inevitable 
that  they  should  work  as  they  do. 

First  among  the  retarding  causes  is  the  compara- 
tive permanence  of  fixed  ideas,  especially  when,  as 
in  this  case,  they  receive  the  immense  reinforce- 
ment of  the  soul's  feehng.  A  theological  idea, 
crude,  it  may  be,  and  quite  inadequate  in  itself, 
becomes  another  thing  when  allied  with  rehgious 
emotion.     It  is  not  perceived  by  those  under  the 


THEOLOGY'S  HIDDEN  FACTORS        83 

influence  that  these  two  tilings,  the  idea  and  the 
feeling,  are  not  really  one.  The  fact  that  the  two 
have,  for  years,  centuries  perhaps,  been  aUied, 
has  given  them  an  appearance  of  identity  w^hich  it 
is  supremely  difficult  to  displace.  And  thus  w^hile 
the  old  inferior  idea  has  for  a  time  behind  it  the 
incomparable  force  of  religion's  inner  feeling,  the 
new,  higher  one  has  often  the  fate  to  lie  bare  and 
seemingly  unaccompanied.  It  will  only  reach  its 
hour  when  the  soul  by  its  growth  recognises  it 
finally  as  the  wider,  deeper  channel  along  which  the 
tide  of  its  faith  and  love  may  flow. 

What  must  also  not  be  forgotten  here  is  that  the 
old,  the  established  in  theology,  will  by  that  very 
fact  have  gathered  all  the  vested  interests  around 
it,  which  will  naturally  fight  for  its  life  as  their  ow^n. 
The  new  faith,  which  begins  by  opposing  an  earher 
order,  may  usually  reckon  on  crucifixion.  Jesus, 
greatest  of  revolutionaries,  expected  to  be  put  to 
death  by  the  vested  interests,  and  was  not  deceived. 
Orthodoxy,  that  is  to  say,  the  Une  of  Hfe  and  thinking 
that  has  established  itself,  is  sure  of  its  army  of 
defenders.  There  is  money  in  it,  and  the  people 
who  love  money  will  accordingly  be  there.  On 
this  side,  too,  are  the  honours  and  dignities.  Annas 
and  Caiaphas  are  well  housed,  and  belong  to  the 
best  Jerusalem  society.  The  Galilean  has  not 
where  to  lay  His  head.  Along  this  well-worn 
track,  too,  the  mental  going  is  so  easy.  It  is  the 
line  of  least  resistance,  and  upon  it  accordingly  will 
be  found  that  numberless  host  who  wish  to  be 
spared  the  trouble  of  thinking.  Truly,  when  one 
surveys    these    accumulated    forces    of    resistance 


84  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the    wonder    is    that    theology    has    ever    moved 
at  all. 

"  And    yet    it    moves."     The    forces    we    have 
mentioned    are    strong,    but    what    they    contend 
against  is  stronger.     There  is  one  thing  which  no 
combination  can  resist,  and  that  is  the  law  of  life. 
It  is  just  this  law  lying  directly  underneath  theology, 
which  compels  its  movement.  Consider,  for  instance, 
the  working  on  any  system  of  the  mere  lapse  of 
time.     No  vested  interests,   no  accumulated  force 
of  feeling  can  prevent  the  years  from  rolling.     But 
observe  what  that  means.     As   illustrative   of  its 
effect  upon  thought,  one  might  choose  an  historical 
period  almost  at  random  out  of  any  of  the  Christian 
centuries.     Suppose,    for    instance,    we    take    the 
middle    of    the    second    century,    and    compare    it 
with  the  first,   the  apostolic   age.     Any   one  con- 
versant   with    the    literature    of   the    two    periods 
knows   the    enormous   difference    of   the    theologic 
outlook,  a  difference  created,  one  may  say,  by  the 
years.     Though  they  bore  the  same  name,  what  a  gulf 
separated  the  second  century  Christians  from  those 
who  were  contemporaries   of  Jesus  !     We  in   this 
age,  with  our  neatly  bound  Bible,  our  creeds,  our 
established  church  order,  our  printing  press  which 
multiplies  our  religious  documents  without  limit, 
have  difficulty  in  realising  the  mental  state,  the 
theologic  condition,  shall  we  say,  of  the  disciples 
of    that    second    period — who    had    no    first-hand 
witnesses    left    of   their    faith,    and    no    literature 
scarcely      to     take      their      place.     What     they 
have     in       this     kind     are     a    few     manuscript 
copies      circulating      here      and      there     of     the 


THEOLOGY'S  HIDDEN  FACTORS         85 

"  Recollections  "  quoted  from  by  Justin  Martyr, 
and  which  in  all  probability  were  our  synoptic 
gospels  ;  the  Apostolic  Epistles  ;  some  letters  of 
Christian  bishops,  such  as  the  Epistles  of  Clement 
and  Ignatius  ;  a  number  of  imaginative  and  visionary 
works,  such  as  "  The  Shepherd  "  of  Hermas  ;  and 
further — most  significant  of  all — the  fantastic  specu- 
lations, every  year  growing  wilder,  of  the  Gnostic 
thinkers.  What  a  position  for  theology,  yet  how 
inevitable  !  We  see  here  at  work  its  unnoted 
factors.  Time  has  carried  away  the  apostolic 
witnesses  ;  the  lack  of  education,  of  printing,  and 
all  our  modern  arts,  has  prevented  the  diffusion  of  an 
adequate  literature.  Left  to  tradition,  to  the  often 
treacherous  memories,  which  during  three  genera- 
tions have  been  almost  the  sole  conservators  of  the 
Gospel  facts,  what  wonder  that  the  theology  of 
that  age,  orthodox  and  unorthodox,  as  we  have  it 
reflected  later  in  the  pages  of  Irenseus  and  Tertullian, 
assumes  a  character  so  bewildering  ? 

This  time-illustration  might  have  been  taken 
from  any  other  age,  only  to  show  similar  results. 
There  has  never  been  any  standing  still,  no,  not 
in  those  Middle  Ages,  which  are  sometimes  ignor- 
antly  pointed  to  as  a  period  of  theologic  immobility. 
Each  generation,  while  holding  to  the  same  pre- 
scribed form  of  words,  has  given  them  its  own 
special  significance.  Each,  we  perceive,  under  the 
influence  of  the  time  spirit,  has  had  a  changed 
Weltanschauung,  or  general  world-view.  In  this 
process  of  alteration  it  is  interesting  to  note  how 
the  most  influential  factors  are  often  apparently 
at  the  farthest  remove  from  the  subject.     One  might 


86  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

hazard  the  paradox  that  the  real  theologians  are 
those  who  have  notliing  to  do  with  theology. 
Darwin  would  scarcely  be  named  to-day  as  an 
ecclesiastical  student,  yet  the  thinking  of  every 
ecclesiastic  of  our  generation  is  conditioned  by 
Darwin.  Every  theological  work,  whether  for  or 
against,  pivots  round  his  central  idea.  And  as  with 
the  past  so  with  the  future.  The  theological  move- 
ment of  the  next  decade  will  be  determined,  we 
venture  to  say,  not  by  the  theologians.  It  will  not 
be  by  what  the  divines  can  dig  out  of  their  time- 
worn  manuscripts,  but  by  what  the  new  zoology 
of  the  Neo-Lamarckians  ;  by  what  De  Vries,Hamann, 
Driesch  and  Wundt  have  to  offer  against  a  material- 
istic "  natural  selection  "  as  the  origin  of  things, 
and  in  favour  of  a  purposed  movement  discoverable 
in  the  world,  implying  intelligence  and  personality 
behind  it ;  it  will  be  by  further  researches  into  the 
mysteries  of  cellular  and  atomic  formation,  revealing 
the  spiritual  basis  of  matter,  that  the  great  reaction 
is  coming  from  the  doubts  of  the  last  generation 
to  a  new  faith  in  God. 

Another  of  the  hidden  factors  in  theology  is  to 
be  found  in  the  earlier  religions  of  the  peoples 
who,  by  one  means  and  another,  have  been  won 
over  to  the  Christian  faith.  The  kind  of  ground 
your  seed  faUs  on,  not  less  than  the  seed  itself,  will 
determine  the  quality  of  the  crop.  Zealous  Pro- 
testants have,  for  instance,  denounced  the  saint 
worship  and  practical  polytheism  of  Catholic  coun- 
tries as  a  kind  of  diabolical  perversion  of  primitive 
Christianity.  The  modern  historian  takes  a  different 
view      The   "  polytheism  "    is    simply   the   revival 


THEOLOGY'S  HIDDEN  FACTORS        87 

under  other  forms  of  the  earlier  paganism  which 
Christianity  nominally  supplanted.  The  worship  of 
the  "  Mother  of  God  "  is  a  baptized  version  of  the 
old  Astarte  cult ;  and  village  festivals  in  Italy,  with 
priest  and  mass  book  assisting,  are  traced  back  to 
pagan  rites  in  honour  of  local  divinities — assets 
that  the  Church  took  over  and  continued  to  run  as 
part  of  its  business,  under  another  name. 

Temperament  also,  the  temperament  of  races 
and  of  leading  individualities,  must  be  noted  as  one 
of  the  vastest  of  the  unseen  influences  that  have 
shaped  and  coloured  theology.  Some  constitutions 
exude  more  bile  than  others,  and  too  many  theo- 
logians have  been  bilious  to  begin  with.  That  has 
been  the  real  secret  of  their  view  of  God  and  man. 
They  had  been  in  another  universe  could  you  have 
improved  their  liver.  Other  leading  thinkers, 
speaking  out  of  a  good  digestion  and  a  happy  career, 
have  never  been  able  to  see  the  actual  evil  of  the 
world  ;  and  their  theology,  occupied  mainly  with 
the  sunshine,  is,  in  consequence,  scarcely  reUable 
as  to  hfe's  under  side.  Like  Madame  Eecamier,  as 
described  by  Sainte-Beuve,  who  "  ne  croyait  pas 
au  mal,''  they  do  not  beUeve  in  evil.  But  the 
evil  for  all  that  is  there. 

Thus  much  of  temperament.  One  could  multiply 
indefinitely  these  under-working  forces  that  play 
upon  the  theological  product.  Geography,  for 
instance.  The  mere  fact  of  a  man  transporting 
himself  from  one  degree  of  longitude  to  another  has 
had  more  than  once  the  most  critical  and  far-reach- 
ing influence.  Pusey,  early  in  his  career,  spent 
some    time    in    Germany,    and    caught    there    the 


88  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

critical  spirit  to  such  a  degree  as  to  lead  some  of 
the  old  school  of  Anglican  divines  to  cry  out  against 
his  rationahsing  tendencies.  One  wonders  what 
would  have  been  the  later  history  of  AngHcanism 
had  our  young  theologian  remained  some  years 
longer  in  Rhineland,  instead  of  coming  back  as 
he  did  to  Oxford  !  The  question  is  similar  to  that 
asked  by  Stanley  as  to  what  would  have  been  the 
course  of  Church  thinking  had  Newman  known 
German  ! 

Ours  is  a  mere  sketch  of  a  vast  subject,  but 
enough,  one  hopes,  has  been  said  to  show  how 
impossible  it  is  to  keep  theology  at  a  standstill ; 
to  show  still  further  that  there  is  no  separate 
department  for  it  in  the  scheme  of  human  know- 
ledge. All  truth  is  one,  because  the  universe  is 
one.  Every  fact  and  every  happening  plays  into 
every  other  fact  and  happening.  The  movement 
is  inevitable.  But  what  faith  discerns  is  that  the 
march  is  always  in  one  direction.  As  the  horizon 
broadens  it  shows  only  more  clearly  the  outUnes 
of  our  spiritual  inheritance.  Every  truth,  from 
whatsoever  quarter  it  opens  upon  us,  fits  into  its 
place  as  part  of  the  continuous,  ever-growing  and 
evermore  luminous  revelation  of  God. 


IX 
The   Quality    of    Belief 

Amid  the  wrangles  of  to-day  about  beliefs,  it  is 
worth  while  asking  a  preHminary  question  about 
beUef.  Not  that  this  is  by  any  means  an  undis- 
cussed subject.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  topic  of 
rehgion  that  has  been  more  exhaustively  handled. 
Were  we  to  mention  even  the  names  of  the  books 
in  which  theology,  to  say  nothing  of  philosophy,  has 
expounded  the  theme — tomes  on  the  nature  of 
faith,  on  justifying  faith,  on  prevenient  grace  as 
related  to  faith,  on  the  factors  in  beUef,  on  belief 
and  the  creeds,  on  "  the  will  to  believe,"  on  faith 
and  authority,  and  the  hke — we  should  more 
than  fill  this  volume.  A  vast  deal  of  the  argument 
is  of  a  dry-as-dust  character,  and  too  much  of 
it  is  morbid.  What  trouble  has  there  been  in 
pious,  unpractised  minds,  as  to  whether  their  faith 
was  of  the  right,  saving  brand  ;  what  probing,  and 
sifting,  and  analysing  of  poor  distracted  souls  ! 
Their  dog  all  along  has  been  a  better  philosopher. 
There  has  never  been  a  sounder  faith  than  that 
which  he  has  in  his  master,  and  yet  these  disquiet- 
ing questions  concerning  it  have  never  for  one 
moment  troubled  his  doghood.     Our  introspection 


90  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

is  too  often  like  that  of  a  healthy  man  who,  on  a 
spring  morning,  should  shut  himself  up  to  examine 
his  eyes  instead  of  turning  them  joyfully  on  all  the 
beauty  outside. 

Nevertheless,  on  this  so  over- trodden  theme,  there 
are  some  considerations — other  than  those  usually 
treated  in  the  tomes  we  have  mentioned — which,  in 
the  present  position  of  matters  spiritual  among  us, 
seem  very  worthy  to  be  dealt  with.  We  need,  for 
our  time,  to  have  it  made  quite  clear  to  us  what 
beUef  is  and  what  it  is  not ;  to  note  the  different 
forms  of  it  and  their  value  ;  and,  not  least,  the 
mistakes  concerning  it  which  previous  ages  have 
bequeathed  to  us  as  a  damnosa  haereditas. 

Let  us,  first  of  all,  rid  ourselves  of  the  notion  that 
there  is  any  diminution  of  belief  in  the  world. 
There  is  as  much  now  as  ever  there  was.  Every 
man  is  full  of  belief.  When  we  talk  of  believers 
and  unbeUevers  we  are  using  the  terms  only  by 
way  of  accommodation.  The  atheist  is  as  full  of 
faith  as  the  most  devout  Catholic.  For  all  his 
denials  are  simply  affirmations  read  backwards. 
When  he  denies  that  this  thing  is  as  it  appears  to 
you,  it  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  he  believes 
it  is  as  it  appears  to  him.  He  can,  in  fact,  no  more 
help  beheving  than  he  can  help  breathing.  The 
capacity  is  in  him,  just  as  his  heart  and  lungs  are  in 
him,  and  is  as  constantly  being  used.  The  differ- 
ence between  men  is  not  here  at  all.  We  are  all 
alike  full  up  with  beliefs  ;  the  point  is  not  here,  but 
in  the  quality  of  our  beliefs  ;  in  other  words,  in 
what  we  beheve  and  how  we  beheve  it. 

Let  us,  in  the  next  place,  be  sure  of  another 


THE  QUALITY  OF  BELIEF  91 

thing,  that  behef  has  a  quahty  of  its  own,  not  hard 
to  be  discerned,  and  which  marks  it  off  from  all 
counterfeits  and  imitations.  History  is  full  of 
these  last,  but  we  can  always  detect  them.  And  we 
can  see  the  genuine  belief  under  the  imitation. 
When  Charlemagne,  after  one  of  his  battles,  offered 
the  defeated  Saxons  the  option  of  conversion  to 
Christianity  or  of  being  put  to  the  sword,  the  con- 
sent of  his  captives  to  the  former  alternative  was 
certainly,  in  its  way,  an  act  of  faith,  but  it  was  not 
faith  in  Christianity^  It  was  the  assured  belief — 
the  full  assent  and  consent  of  their  minds  to  the  pro- 
position— that  unless  they  there  and  then  accepted 
baptism  their  throats  would  incontinently  be  cut. 
And  there  are  illustrations  much  nearer  home  than 
Charlemagne  and  the  Saxons.  In  his  essay  on 
"  Compromise,"  Mr.  Morley  asks  :  "  Are  we  to 
suppose  that  it  is  firm  persuasion  of  the  greater 
scripturalness  of  Episcopacy  that  turns  the  second 
generation  of  dissenting  manufacturers  in  our  busy 
Lancashire  into  Churchmen  ?  "  As  everyone  knows, 
and  not  least  the  converts  themselves,  the  Anghcan 
creed  which  they  now  recite  represents  in  no  way 
the  actual  behef  upon  which  they  have  acted.  The 
working  conviction  here  is  that  of  the  dominance 
and  power  of  the  Establishment,  and  of  the  social 
advantages  which  a  connection  with  it  secures. 

Behef,  as  an  active  exercise  of  the  mind,  is 
involuntary.  You  can  no  more  will  to  believe 
than  you  can  will  to  be  hot  or  cold.  Just  as  these 
sensations  are  registers  within  of  a  fact  outside, 
namely,  of  the  temperature,  so  belief  is  the  soul's 
register  of  an  outside  fact,  namely,  of  the  evidence 


92  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

presented  to  it.  You  may,  it  is  true,  act  on  the 
temperature  by  various  means,  and  so  in  a  sense 
will  your  heat  and  cold.  But  the  actual  sensation 
is  always  a  register  of  what  is  there.  In  like 
manner  you  can  manufacture  evidence  ;  or  pay 
attention  solely  to  one  class  of  evidence  ;  and  so  in 
a  way  seem  to  will  your  belief.  But  what  you 
cannot  do  is  to  alter  the  way  in  which  the  evidence 
presented  works  behef  on  the  mind.  And  here 
comes  in  Locke's  famous  proposition,  where,  dis- 
cussing the  love  of  truth  in  men,  he  says  :  "  And 
I  think  there  is  this  one  unerring  mark  of  it,  namely, 
the  not  entertaining  any  proposition  with  greater 
assurance  than  the  proofs  it  is  built  upon  will 
warrant."  Theologians  of  a  certain  school  have 
exclaimed  loudly  at  this  thesis,  but  it  will  hold 
water.  And  that  we  can  best  see  when  we  note 
the  attacks  upon  it. 

For  instance,  it  is  urged  that  such  a  rule  would  do 
away  with  that  belief  upon  authority  on  which  the 
vast  majority  of  the  race — children  and  the  mass  of 
the  uneducated — have  to  depend  as  their  working 
faith.  Does  it  not,  argues  Newman,  "  cut  off  from 
the  possibility  and  the  privilege  of  faith  all  but  the 
educated  few,  all  but  the  learned,  the  clear-headed, 
the  men  of  practised  intellects  and  balanced 
minds?"  The  reply  is  simple.  The  objection  is  wide 
of  the  mark.  Locke  is  here  in  no  wise  impugning 
the  legitimate  exercise  of  authority  as  a  ground  of 
belief.  We  all  begin  this  way.  As  children,  and 
in  our  whole  career  as  learners,  we  have  very  largely 
to  take  things  on  trust.  But  what  Newman  and 
others   of   his   school   have   forgotten   is   that   the 


THE  QUALITY  OF  BELIEF  93 

exercise  of  this  trust,  of  our  yield  to  authority,  is 
an  illustration  of  this  very  Lockian  law  of  belief  on 
evidence  which  is  attacked.  For  why  do  we,  children 
and  adults,  believe  upon  authority  ?  Precisely 
because  the  evidence  for  the  validity  of  the  authority 
seems  to  us  sufficient.  Young  people  know  that 
their  elders  and  teachers  know  more  than  they  do, 
and  go  upon  that.  In  our  turn,  when  we  accept  the 
conclusions  of  Newton's  "  Principia  "  without 
studying  it,  we  do  so  on  the  evidence  of  his  capacity 
as  a  mathematician  and  the  agreement  with  him 
of  other  competent  minds. 

Thus — and  here  is  the  whole  point  to  be  noted — 
the  behef  through  authority  is  still  and  entirely 
a  belief  upon  evidence.  The  authority  is  itself  the 
evidence.  If  the  authority  is  a  strong,  an  indubit- 
able one,  our  behef  will  correspond.  If  the  authority 
is  doubtful  our  mental  condition  will  be  one  of  doubt. 
And  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  for  the  mind  in  this 
works  automatically,  by  its  own  law.  And  it  is 
precisely  here  that  the  so-called  Church  authority 
advanced  by  Catholics  as  the  ground  of  belief  for 
their  dogmas  so  hopelessly  breaks  down.  We  accept 
authorities,  as  we  have  said,  when  we  have  evidence 
that  they  know  things  better  than  we  do.  When 
we  find  they  do  not  the  situation  is  changed.  An 
almost  perfect  illustration  of  what  we  mean  is 
furnished,  curiously  enough,  by  one  of  the  greatest 
of  the  Church  authorities — to  wit,  St.  Augustine. 
Readers  of  him  will  remember  how  his  first  doubts 
of  the  Manichsean  system,  to  which,  in  his  youth, 
he  had  attached  himself,  arose  from  his  contact  with 
Faustus,    its    most    noted    leader    and    advocate. 


94  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

When  Augustine,  who  began  with  the  deepest 
reverence  for  him,  found  that  the  great  man,  in 
subjects  such  as  mathematics,  with  which  he  him- 
self was  famiUar,  w^as  really  only  a  pretender  to 
knowledge,  he  began  to  distrust  his  competency  to 
decide  for  him  the  greater  matters  of  rehgion. 
That  is  precisely  where  the  educated  mind  of  to-day 
is  in  respect  of  the  Councils  and  Popes,  and  of  the 
entire  ecclesiastical  machinery  which  undertakes 
to  decide  for  us  what  we  are  to  believe.  We  have 
discovered  their  incompetency  as  authorities.  Their 
decisions  represent  a  mental  condition  that  in  a 
hundred  ways  has  been  outgrown.  "  What  is 
always,  everywhere,  and  by  all  believed,"  to  quote 
the  famous  Catholic  formula,  is  really  in  itself  no 
adequate  evidence.  A  single  Copernicus  may  over- 
turn in  astronomy  what  for  ages  has  been  "  every- 
where and  by  all  behe ved . ' '  Professor  Curie  with  his 
radium  was  a  better  witness  on  the  atom  than  all  the 
chemists  of  all  the  ages.  The  modern  mind,  with 
its  science  of  history,  with  its  knowledge  of  the 
uniformity  of  law,  with  its  insight  into  the  growth 
of  tradition,  can  tell  us  more  about  the  validity  of 
dogma  than  the  whole  catena  of  the  fathers. 

Does  it  follow,  then,  because  we  find  the  earlier 
Christian  ages  wrong  about  so  many  things,  that 
the  rehgion  they  teach  is  no  longer  authoritative 
for  us  ?  Because  their  beUef  is  not  in  all  respects 
ours,  have  we  no  behef  ?  Far  otherwise.  At  this 
point  comes  before  us  a  different  sort  of  evidence. 
Inside  the  truth  revealed  by  scientific  research 
there  lies  another  truth,  even  more  vital,  that, 
namely,    which    opens    to    character    and    service- 


THE  QUALITY  OF  BELIEF  95 

There  is  a  persuasion  which  results  from  living  in  a 
certain  way,  from  following  certain  discipUnes  and 
ideals.  This  is  the  truth  of  the  heart,  which  is 
always  greater  than  the  truth  of  the  intellect.  The 
conviction  that  two  and  two  make  four  is  reached  one 
way  ;  the  conviction  that  the  pure  in  heart  see  God 
in  quite  another.  And  it  is  when  we  search  the 
Christian  centuries  under  the  guidance  of  this 
principle  that  we  find  a  reality  independent  of 
and  infinitely  higher  than  all  the  dogmatic,  doctrinal 
forms  in  which  it  is  wrapped.  We  see  that  the 
opinions  of  those  times  were  one  thing — time 
vestures  suited  to  certain  mental  conditions.  But 
the  love,  the  sacrifice,  the  devotion  that  were  there  ; 
the  holy  Kves,  the  martyr  deaths,  are  in  a  different 
category.  These  are  the  treasure  in  the  earthen 
vessel.  These  hold  for  us  a  truth  immortal  and 
Divine,  which  it  is  for  us  in  our  turn  to  seek 
adequately  to  body  forth. 

The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits.  A  conviction 
which  makes  a  man  better  than  he  was  before  ; 
which  holds  him  back  from  sin,  which  stirs  his  love 
and  sets  him  on  the  road  upward,  has  the  truth 
inside  it,  however  rude  his  attempts  at  explanation. 
It  is  deeper,  in  fact,  than  our  best  explanation.  A 
Russian  correspondent  of  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette, 
writing  of  the  Nonconforming  sects  in  his  country, 
said  their  villages  had  an  air  of  brightness  and 
well-being  absent  from  those  of  the  Orthodox 
Russians  ;  "  the  evangehcal  sectarian  is  one  who 
does  not  drink  or  smoke  ;  is  economical,  thrifty, 
and  more  industrious  than  the  slaves  of  the  Synod." 
We  might  dispute  half  the  opinions  of  these  people  ; 


96  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

they  are  probably  crude  enough.  What  hes  out- 
side dispute  is  that  proof  from  hfe  which  shows  the 
presence  here  under  lowUest  forms,  of  a  something 
so  infinitely  higher  than  our  logic,  whose  working 
is  bit  by  bit  redeeming  the  world. 

It  is  the  supreme  business  of  the  Church  to-day 
to  exhibit  this  logic  of  the  heart.  For  this  is  the 
evidence  which  not  only  compels  belief,  but  beUef 
of  the  highest  kind.  So  different  is  it  from  the 
mere  persuasion  of  the  intellect.  It  is  not  on  the 
same  level  at  all  with  your  conviction  about  arith- 
metic or  chemistry.  You  may  have  those  and  be 
a  brute  and  a  sensualist.  You  cannot  have  these 
others  without  feeling  an  upward  tug.  With  this 
kind  of  truth  growing  ever  upon  us  we  can  afford  the 
strictest  revisions  in  the  religion  of  the  intellect. 
Let  criticism  exact  here  what  it  will.  Whatever 
changes  it  may  effect  in  our  thought  it  can  serve 
only  to  deepen  in  us  the  sense  of  that  Kingdom 
whose  glories  are  discerned  by  faith,  and  whose 
products  are  righteousness,  peace  and  joy. 


Of  Religious  Transition 

The  picture  which  Lucian,  in  the  Hermotimus, 
draws  of  the  bewildered  traveller,  besieged  in  turn 
by  a  dozen  different  philosophic  and  religious  sects, 
each  pointing  to  a  different  road  as  the  one  and 
only  way  to  truth  and  peace,  was  surely  never 
more  vividly  or  pathetically  realised  than  in  our 
day.  Not  the  least  striking  feature  of  the  con- 
fusion is  that  it  occurs  amongst  the  first-class 
minds.  Consider  what  has  happened  in  this  gene- 
ration amongst  our  best  EngUshmen !  The  two 
Newmans,  starting  from  the  same  EvangeUcal 
household,  dowered  each  with  rare  mental  gifts 
and  deep  rehgious  feehng,  passing  through  the 
same  discipline  of  school  and  college,  emerge  finally, 
the  one  as  a  Roman  Cardinal,  the  other  as  a  non- 
Christian  theist.  Leshe  Stephen,  beginning  in  his 
home  with  the  very  finest  brand  of  Evangelical 
Anglicanism,  ends  in  a  militant  Agnosticism. 
Frederic  Harrison,  brought  up  amidst  devout 
High  Church  influences,  becomes  the  apostle  of 
Positivism.  Mr.  AUanson  Picton,  in  his  ancestry 
and  his  earlier  years  representing  the  most  cul- 
tured   form    of    Nonconformity,    anchors    himself 

97  7 


98  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

finally  in  the  system  of  Spinoza.  The  wonder  of 
these  transitions  is  that  the  several  travellers 
seem  all  equally  satisfied  with  the  bourne  they 
reach.  Cardinal  Newman  declares  that  after  his 
conversion  to  Rome,  he  never  had  a  doubt.  Mr. 
Harrison,  in  his  own  recent  "  Apologia,"  expresses 
himself  in  almost  exactly  the  same  terms.  Mr. 
Pic  ton  speaks  with  no  less  emphasis  of  the  spiritual 
peace  he  has  found  in  Pantheism.  And  the  others 
we  have  mentioned  are  equally  sure  that  the  posi- 
tion they  have  arrived  at  offers  the  best  inward 
satisfaction  that  this  life  affords. 

Is  there,  then,  no  ultimate  truth  which  humanity 
will  reach,  in  which  all  minds  and  hearts  will  finally 
agree  ?  We  should  be  sorry  to  think  so.  The 
lesson  for  the  moment  here  is  that  the  curve  is 
too  large  for  our  measurement.  The  ultimate 
all-uniting  synthesis  is  vaster  than  we  can  at  present 
see.  To  reach  it  there  seems  necessary  the  ex- 
perience by  our  race  of  every  possible  mental 
attitude,  an  experience,  not  only  of  minds,  but  of 
lives.  Our  various  "  noes  "  and  "  yeas  "  are  all 
to  be  put  to  the  test,  that  we  may  learn  exactly 
what  they  do  and  do  not  yield.  Let  us  be  sure, 
however,  that  the  final  answer  will  not  be  a  "  no," 
rather  a  "  yea,"  which  will  comprehend  all  that 
the  "  noes  "  have  to  teach  us,  and  be  so  much 
the  more  satisfying  by  that  very  comprehension. 

Let  us,  however,  now  observe  some  things  con- 
nected with  these  transitions.  One  does  not 
wonder,  considering  the  apparent  confusions  to 
which  they  lead,  that  reUgious  minds  dread  them, 
and  the  intellectual  operations  which  bring  them 


OF  RELIGIOUS  TRANSITION  99 

about.  Newman  fled  to  Rome  as  a  refuge  from 
what  he  calls  "  the  wild  living  intellect  of  man." 
Isaac  Taylor  deprecates  too  much  mind  in  divinity. 
"  Theology,"  says  he,  "  offers  no  field  to  men 
fond  of  intellectual  enterprise."  Men  are  afraid  of 
what  the  "  destructive  force  "  of  reason  will  bring 
upon  religion  and  the  Church.  A  well-known 
divine  recently  expressed  his  thankfulness,  in  view 
of  what  was  coming,  that  his  ministry  was  behind 
rather  than  before  him.  Some  find  no  remedy 
except  in  a  speedy  Apocalypse  and  dissolution  of 
things.  They  are  here  of  Luther's  mind  ;  "  The 
world  is  an  odd  fellow  ;  may  God  soon  make  an 
end  of  it."  The  same  shiver,  in  thought  of  the 
future,  comes  over  Sir  Thomas  Browne  in  the 
Religio  Medici.  He  thinks  a  sensible  man  "  is  not 
likely  to  envy  those  that  shall  live  in  the  next 
age,  much  less  three  or  four  hundred  years  hence, 
when  no  man  can  comfortably  imagine  what  face 
this  world  will  carry." 

These  surely  are  strange  notions.  They  illus- 
trate what  one  is  so  continually  meeting  with — 
the  rooted,  unreasoning  scepticism  of  believers. 
What  sort  of  a  faith  is  it  to  imagine  that  God,  who 
is  held  to  have  wrought  so  wonderfully  in  the 
past,  will  have  no  hold  on  the  future  ?  What 
kind  of  behef  is  this  which  dreads  the  operation 
of  that  mind  within  us  which  is  our  best  evidence 
of  an  Eternal  Mind  ?  As  if  intellect  were  outside 
of  law  ;  instead  of  being,  as  anyone  may  see  who 
will  study  its  history,  the  finest  illustration  and 
expression  of  Divine  law  ?  Its  movement  from 
age  to  age  is  as  steady,  as  irresistible  as  the  growth 


100  OURICITY  OF  GOD 

of  a  tree,  as  the  swing  of  a  planet  in  its  orbit.  Re- 
ligious transition  is  in  fact  simply  a  feature  of  the 
mind's  growth,  and  must  always  go  on  because 
the  mind  is  always  growing.  Our  world-view  at 
sixteen,  how  entirely  different  is  it  from  that  we 
held  at  six  ?  And  the  one  at  thirty-six  will  be 
just  as  different  from  the  one  at  sixteen. 

The   human   race,    as   a   whole,   follows   in   this 
respect  the  history  of  the  individual.     The  most 
conservative    of    thinkers    cannot    get    away    from 
that  fact.     Newman,  in  his  essay  on  Development, 
makes  full  use  of  it,  though  he  hmits  it  in  his  own 
way.     His  personal  experience  had  shown  him  the 
irresistible  forces  that  make  for  movement.  "  How," 
says  he  in  the  "  Apologia,"  "  was  I  to  be  sure  that 
I  should  always  think  as  I  thought  now  ?  "     And 
again,   "It  is    the    concrete    being    that  reasons  ; 
pass  a  number  of  years  and  I  find  my  mind  in  a 
new  place.     How  ?     The  whole  man  moves  ;   paper 
logic  is  but  the  record   of  it."     He  ever  realised 
that, as  he  elsewhere  puts  it,  he  "was  on  a  journey." 
He  imagined  he  had  reached  the  end  in  Cathohcism. 
But  where  old  men  end  young  men  begin.     The 
young  Catholics  of  to-day  find  they  too  are  "  on 
a  journey,"  the  end  of  which  they  see  not.  Schiller's 
Une  about  Goethe,  "  Much  that  still  interests  me 
has  already  had  its  epoch  with  him,"  is  so  true  of 
mind  hfe  everywhere.     We  have  our  epochs.     To- 
day religion  and  Ufe  appear  to  us  under  a  certain 
aspect.     Then  comes   a   turn  in  the  road,   a   new 
province  of  knowledge,   or  the  sheer,  unconscious 
gestation   of   the   soul,   and    that   aspect   has   dis- 
appeared, never,  by  any  process,  to  be  recalled. 


OF  RELIGIOUS  TRANSITION  101 

What  is  the  law  in  individual  lives  has  been, 
on  the  greater  scale,  the  law  of  religious  history. 
Of  this  the  story  of  Christianity  from  beginning  to 
end  has  been  one  long  illustration.  Its  thought- 
movement,  "  unhasting,  unresting,"  has  never  for 
a  moment  ceased.  It  has  been  unhasting.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  Natitra  non  facit  saltus.  The  tran- 
sition from  Judaism  to  Christianity  was  by  no 
means  the  sudden  affair  that  people  are  apt  to 
imagine.  The  modern  student  sees  the  one  fading 
into  the  other  in  the  most  gradual  way.  It  is 
step  by  step.  The  Master  was  Himself  a  Jew  ; 
His  disciples  thought  of  themselves  as  Jews.  The 
first  churches,  not  only  in  but  outside  Palestine, 
had  Jews  as  their  nucleus.  Supposing  it  had  been 
otherwise  ;  supposing  the  missionary  churches  had 
been  made  up  entirely  of  pagans,  of  people  whose 
traditions  were  simply  of  Jove  and  the  Olympian 
gods  and  goddesses,  how  different,  hoAV  impossible 
the  thing  would  have  been  !  It  is  to  the  Judaism 
in  Christianity  that  we  owe  our  possession  of  the 
Old  Testament,  much  of  our  moral  code,  a  large 
part  of  the  Church's  organisation. 

But  the  movement,  though  step  by  step,  has 
never  ceased  from  then  till  now.  The  Romanist 
"  8emper  eadem  "  is  the  oddest  of  fancies.  The 
notion  of  an  infalhbility,  of  a  final  utterance  on 
doctrine,  whether  by  the  Fathers,  or  by  Councils, 
or  by  Popes,  is  for  people  who  do  not  read  history. 
As  to  the  Fathers,  let  any  one  read  the  large-minded 
Greeks  among  them — Origen,  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, Gregory  of  Nyssa — and  contrast  their 
Universahsm  with  the  Eschatology  of  a  Tertullian 


102  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

or  an  Augustine  !  They  are  as  the  poles  asunder. 
Their  "  unanimity "  is  beautifully  illustrated  by 
the  proceedings  at  Sardica,  where  the  Eusebians 
declare  the  Athanasians  to  be  "  an  unscrupulous 
set  of  liars,"  and  accuse  Athanasius  of  blasphemy. 
What  absolute  truth,  too,  was  in  Councils  may  be 
gathered  from  that  of  Carthage,  which  pronounced 
an  anathema  on  "  those  who  say  that  man  was 
created  mortal,  and  would  have  died  even  though 
he  had  not  fallen."  And  what  becomes  of  Papal 
infallibility  when  we  read  of  Pope  Honorius  teach- 
ing "  ex  cathedra  "  the  Monothelite  doctrine  con- 
demned afterwards  as  a  heresy  by  an  (Ecumenical 
Council ;  or  of  Pope  Vigilius,  who,  in  Justinian's 
reign,  made  four  or  five  "  ex  cathedra  "  assertions 
and  afterwards  the  flattest  contradictions  of  them, 
on  the  doctrine  of  the  two  natures  ? 

When  we  advance  from  this  period  to  that  of 
the  Middle  Ages  the  spectacle  is  the  same.  People 
are  apt  to  think  of  the  mediseval  time — the  age  of 
faith — ^when  Rome  had  undisputed  supremacy 
over  Christendom,  as  one  of  doctrinal  unanimity 
and  immobility.  There  could  not  be  a  greater 
mistake.  Look  beneath  the  surface  and  you  find 
a  tumult  of  onward  hurrying  thoughts.  The 
movement,  it  must  be  admitted,  was  not  always 
in  one  direction.  Christian  doctrine  became  more 
materialised.  Transubstantiation  grew  into  a  dogma. 
Jesus,  as  is  shown  very  clearly  in  twelth  century 
pictures,  had  ceased  to  be  gentle,  and  had  become 
terrible.  Yet  what  immense  upheavals,  what  revo- 
lutions in  thinking  there  were  in  those  days  !  Think 
of   the   Franciscan  leaders,   Joachim   di   Flor   and 


OF  RELIGIOUS  TRANSITION  103 

John  of  Parma,  with  their  "  Eternal  Gospel," 
according  to  which  Christ's  reign  would  end  in 
1260,  and  the  reign  of  the  Spirit  then  begin  ;  which 
declared  the  Greek  Church  to  be  Sodom,  and  the 
Latin  Church  Gomorrah  ;  which  held  the  Roman 
Court  to  be  the  scarlet  woman  of  the  Apocalypse  ! 

It  is  important  to  notice  how,  in  these  successive 
movements,  everything  that  has  happened  in  the 
world  has  borne  its  part.  The  unity  of  hfe  shows 
itself  in  this,  that  nothing  takes  place  in  one  depart- 
ment of  it  that  does  not  react  on  all  the  rest.  The 
attempt  to  shut  off  theology  into  a  water-tight 
compartment,  to  make  its  positions  independent 
of  the  general  world -progress,  is  always  a  failure. 
Every  discovery  in  science  tells,  sooner  or  later, 
upon  divinity.  The  Copernican  astronomy  upset 
the  geo-centric  theory  on  which  the  Church  built 
so  many  of  its  earlier  assumptions.  Geology  played 
havoc  with  the  infallibility  of  Genesis.  In  like 
manner  the  sheer  growth  of  the  general  moral 
consciousness  has  made  it  impossible  for  us  to 
accept  the  punishment  theories  that  seemed  natural 
to  a  crueller  time.  The  one  infallible  revelation 
is  the  revelation  that  is  going  on  from  age  to  age 
in  the  mind  and  soul  of  humanity. 

The  question  remains.  What,  in  view  of  all  this, 
should  be  our  attitude  to  religious  transition  ? 
Do  the  facts  shut  us  up  to  an  Agnosticism  which 
sees  no  purpose  in  the  world,  no  serious  meaning  in 
life  ?  Or  to  Newmanism,  which  finds  refuge  only 
in  the  infallibility  of  Rome  ?  Or  to  that  timid 
brand  of  Protestantism  which  harks  back  on  its 
ownfpast,  and  looks  with  undisguised  terror  on  the 


104  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

future  ?  In  what  has  been  already  said  seems  to 
us  the  sufficient  answer.  The  past,  if  we  have 
truly  read  it,  offers  us  the  key  to  the  future.  It 
shows  us,  what,  indeed,  is  all  we  need  to  know, 
that  "  a  God  orders  the  march."  We  cannot  stay 
the  march  if  we  try.  It  would  be  impious  to 
attempt  it,  for  the  movement  is  so  clearly  divine, 
so  plainly  toward  the  highest  spiritual  end.  The 
records  of  the  journey  should  surely  be  of  this 
the  sufficient  proof,  for  do  they  not  show  us  how  in 
the  mighty  process  there  are  no  steps  backward  ; 
how  conceptions  which  served  their  turn  in  the 
ages  they  fitted  are  replaced  by  higher  ones  when 
their  work  is  done  ;  how  the  forces  that  work 
in  the  mind  and  those  that  move  in  the  soul  are 
united  in  the  production  of  a  common  end  ;  and 
how  amid  all  the  changes  wrought  by  the  vast 
transitions  which  reUgion  has  witnessed  nothing  of 
spiritual  value  has  ever  been  lost  ? 

Our  own  soul,  in  its  solitary  journey,  if  faithful 
to  the  highest  in  it,  becomes  ever  more  conscious 
of  a  Divine  leading.  Its  transitions  are  progresses, 
successive  disclosures  of  the  revelation  that  goes 
on  within.  The  outer  universe,  opening  to  us  at 
every  turn  its  new  exhaustless  energies,  reveals 
itself  as  symbol  and  faint  expression  of  a  diviner 
universe  behind.  More  sure  do  we  become,  as  the 
years  pass,  that  our  intellect  is  fed  from  a  higher 
intellect,  that  our  heart  draws  its  inspiration  from 
a  greater  heart.  As  surely  as  our  bodily  eye  opens 
to  us  a  visible  world  of  matter  and  force,  so  surely 
does  the  soul's  eye  reveal  one  whose  powers  are 
higher.     As    surely    as    hohness    is    greater    than 


OF  RELIGIOUS  TRANSITION  105 

gravitation,  so  surely  is  the  kingdom  of  holiness 
the  real  and  enduring  kingdom.  Our  greatest 
knowledge  is  our  knowledge  of  values.  The  highest 
in  us  points  to  the  highest  without  us.  Science 
knows  that  God  is  Power  ;  the  soul  knows  that  God 
is  Love. 


XI 
The    Church's    Great    Moment 

"  Never  before  were  so  many  men  filled  with  such 
longing  as  to-day  for  firm  and  consistent  convic- 
tions. Men  are  ready  to-day  to  give  any  tiling  for 
a  con\dction  that  is  real  conviction — for  a  beUef 
that  really  is  believed  in.  The  demand  is  for  a 
faith  in  which  there  is  real  faith  ;  men  require 
convictions  as  to  the  meaning  of  Hfe."  It  was  in 
these  words  that  Harnack,  in  an  address  to  the 
Prussian  clergy,  and  dealing  with  the  attitude  of  the 
Social  Democrats  to  reUgion,  described  the  spiritual 
situation  in  Germany,  But  their  appUcation  is  by 
no  means  a  local  one.  The  state  of  things  beyond 
the  Rhine  is  the  state  of  things  in  England,  in 
America,  everywhere  amongst  the  educated  peoples 
of  Christendom.  Men  long  for  a  basis  of  hfe  which 
shall  be  as  credible  to  the  intellect  as  it  is  inspiring 
to  the  soul.  They  want  a  religion  into  which  their 
whole  manhood  can  go.  And  this  is  what  at  present 
they  have  failed  to  find.  The  Church,  they  say, 
feeds  the  heart  at  the  expense  of  the  brain.  And 
so  it  has,  to  the  modern  man,  become  as  unsatisfy- 
ing in  one  way  as  the  world  is  in  another.  The 
disaster  that  has   happened  to  it  is   that  people 

106 


THE  CHURCH'S  GREAT  MOMENT      107 

have  come  to  repeat  its  creed  in  a  quite  different 
sense  from  that  in  which  they  repeat  the  creed  of 
electricity  or  mechanics.  This  last  is  actual  behef, 
a  behef  by  which  they  run  trains  or  build  bridges. 
The  other  is,  in  part  at  least,  make-beheve.  And 
the  teachers  of  it  are  often  in  worse  case  than  the 
people.  In  Sainte  Beuve's  words,  "  lis  se  font 
prophetes  a  fin  de  tdcher  d^etre  croyants.''^ 

The  saying  of  another  witty  Frenchman  concern- 
ing Cathohcism  in  his  own  country  is,  in  a  sense, 
true  of  the  entire  Church  as  it  exists  in  modern 
civilisation.  "  We  can  do  neither  vnth.  it  nor 
without  it."  Men  cannot  do  without  it,  and  for 
the  reason  that,  with  all  its  defects  and  hmitations, 
it  contains  the  very  salt  of  life.  Our  age,  and  some 
others  behind,  have  tried  their  best  to  dispense  with 
it.  They  have  made  experiments  in  two  directions  ; 
in  that  of  the  intellect  and  that  of  the  senses.  They 
have  both  been  failures.  Science,  which  within  the 
last  fifty  years  has  given  us  a  new  universe,  with  aU 
the  secrets  it  unlocks,  has  not  yet  stumbled  on  the 
secret  of  happiness.  We  are  stiU  trying  hard  at  the 
other  experiment,  that  of  the  senses.  Wealth  is  the 
minister  of  the  senses  and  ours  is  the  age  of  miUion- 
aires.  But  in  our  rage  for  money  we  have  forgotten 
to  inquire  as  to  its  purchasing  power.  It  can  buy 
you  houses,  lands,  furniture,  LucuUus  banquets — 
in  fact,  world,  flesh  and  de\dl.  But  in  your  luxurious 
hotel,  as  you  drink  the  champagne  and  order  about 
the  obsequious  waiters,  and  receive  the  homage  of 
those  who  would  make  their  profit  in  you,  you  dis- 
cover there  is  a  class  of  things  not  contained  in  the 
menu,  and  which  not  all  the  resources  of  the  manager 


108  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

can  procure  for  you.  It  is  that  class  of  things  by 
which  the  soul  lives.  Those  invisibles  we  call  love, 
joy,  peace,  temperance,  meekness,  faith  ;  the 
commodities  known  as  fidelity,  comradeship,  trust  ; 
the  disciphnes  by  which  man  becomes  conscious  of 
his  best  self,  of  the  Divine  in  him  and  around  him  ; 
these  are  the  articles  with  which  neither  your 
banker  nor  your  hotel  manager  can  supply  you. 
How  they  would  stare  if  you  asked  them  to  !  And 
yet  without  these  things  you  are  miserable.  Said 
Boswell  to  Johnson  as  they  w^ere  going  over  Lord 
Scarsdale's  mansion  at  Keddlestone  :  "  One  would 
think  the  proprietor  of  all  this  must  be  happy." 
"  Nay,  sir,"  said  Johnson,  "  all  this  excludes  but 
one  evil — poverty." 

The  supreme  moment  for  the  Church  lies  in  the 
fact  that  modern  society  is  finding  all  this  out  for 
itself.  It  discovers  that  neither  in  science  nor  in 
wealth  lies  the  satisfaction  it  craves.  But  the  pity  of 
the  situation  is  that  when  it  turns  from  these  sources 
to  religion,  as  ordinarily  exhibited,  it  fares  almost 
as  badly.  It  finds  it  cannot  do  without  it,  but 
equally  that  it  cannot  do  with  it.  And  for  the  reason 
that  the  Church,  while  providing  one  spiritual  good, 
blocks  the  way  to  another.  It  offers  peace  at  the 
expense  of  truth.  And  this  at  a  time  when  the  world, 
by  its  training  in  science,  is  beginning  to  appreciate 
truth  as  never  before,  as  amongst  the  highest  of  all 
possible  goods,  as  the  first  essential  of  the  soul's 
prosperity.  Is  it  not  time  that  the  Church,  talking 
as  it  docs  to-day  about  "  the  restoration  of  belief," 
should  recognise  that  its  prime  duty  is  to  offer 
men  something  they  can  believe  ?     It  m.ust  pay  its 


THE  CHURCH'S  GREAT  MOMENT      109 

long-standing  debt  to  the  world's  intellect.  It  must 
make  its  door  high  enough  to  enable  the  entire  man 
to  enter,  head  and  all,  without  stooping — or  decapi- 
tation. In  order  to  recover  its  lost  place  in  the 
world  the  Church  must  have  at  least  as  lofty  a  cult 
for  the  mind  as  it  has  for  the  heart. 

And  to  set  itself  right  in  this  matter  its  first 
business  will  be  to  make  clear  to  all  and  sundry 
precisely  what  Christianity  does,  and  what  it  does 
not,  stand  for  ;  what  part  of  it,  as  it  has  come  down 
to  us,  is  a  priceless  and  eternal  possession,  and  what 
part  of  it  is  accidental,  transitory,  a  mere  time 
vesture,  now  worn  out.  And  to  strike  the  cleavage 
line  here  is,  with  our  modern  knowledge,  after  aU 
not  so  difficult  as  one  might  think.  To  reach  it  we 
cannot  do  better  than  go  back  to  the  Gospel's 
beginning,  to  the  great  moment  when  this  new  thing 
came  upon  the  world.  Observing  primitive  Chris- 
tianity in  actual  operation  we  can  by  careful  atten- 
tion dissect  the  elements  of  which  it  w^as  composed, 
and  separate  the  gold  from  the  alloy  needed  to 
work  it. 

As  we  study  the  Christian  communities  of  the 
Apostolic  age  we  find  them  occupied  by  two  mdely 
different  inner  positions.  These  were  first  their 
current  ideas,  and  second — and  chiefly  to  be  noted 
— their  new  condition  of  feehng.  It  has  been  a 
disastrous  mistake  which  the  Church,  from  then  till 
now,  has  persisted  in  making,  to  put  these  tAvo  things 
on  the  same  level,  to  bind  them  as  of  equal  authority 
on  us  who  have  followed.  Whereas  the  difference 
between  them  is  as  the  difference  between  time  and 
eternity.     The   early   Christian   opinions   were  im- 


110  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

portant  enough — to  the  early  Christians.  We  see 
how  those  opinions  influenced  their  actions.  Their 
idea,  for  instance,  of  an  immediate  appearing  of 
the  Master  and  end  of  the  world  affected  their  con- 
duct in  a  thousand  ways.  To  give  up  their  posses- 
sions, to  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow,  to  have  no 
care  for  the  great  world  developments,  for  the  vast 
movements  of  commerce  and  of  science  with  which 
we  are  so  occupied,  was  entirely  natural  for  people 
who  looked  in  their  generation  for  a  transformation 
scene  which  would  bring  in  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth.  But  such  a  view  is  as  impossible  for  us  as 
it  was  natural  for  them.  It  was  part  of  a  cosmic 
outlook  which  we  now  regard  as  naive  and  child- 
like. The  early  Christians,  as  we  must  now  recog- 
nise, have  nothing  to  teach  us  in  the  scientific 
domain.  We  know  a  thousand  times  more  about  the 
universe  than  they  did  ;  about  its  history  in  the 
past,  and  its  possibilities  in  the  future. 

When  it  is  asked  how  a  position  of  this  kind 
relates  itself  to  the  acceptance  of  Christianity  as  a 
religion  of  eternal  truth  and  life,  the  answer  is  simple. 
Early  Christianity  did  its  own  business  in  its  own 
way.  It  was  the  way  of  the  spiritual  process  as  we 
see  it  everywhere  and  always.  It  was  in  itself  an 
incarnation — a  spirit  clothing  itself  in  a  body.  The 
body  was  of  the  earth  earthy,  and  of  the  time  timeous 
and  transient.  The  Master  Himself  was,  in  His 
appearing,  obedient  to  this  law.  His  eternal  was 
clad  in  a  temporal  vesture.  His  very  mind,  so  far 
as  opinion  went,  was  steeped  in  the  colour  of  the 
time.  It  had  the  limitations  of  the  period.  No  one 
would  go  to  His  teaching  as  reported  in  the  Gospels 


THE  CHURCH'S  GREAT  MOMENT      111 

for  information  about  geology  or  molecular  physics. 
We  have  to  recognise  that  in  that  spiritual  evolution 
of  our  race  in  the  centre  of  which  Christianity  finds 
itself,  the  homely  methods  of  illusion  have  been 
suffered  to  play  their  part.  Heaven,  let  us  never 
forget,  has  its  method  of  illusion.  It  is,  we  suppose, 
a  part  of  its  humour.  Children  begin  with  illusion, 
and  find  their  way  by  degrees  to  the  truth.  And 
we  children  of  a  larger  growth  are  treated  similarly. 
The  eternal  treasure  of  the  Gospel  had  this  as  part 
of  its  wrappage.  To  deny  that  is  to  deny  the  most 
obvious  of  facts  ;  to  accuse  it  is  to  accuse  the 
method  of  the  universe. 

When,  as  truth  compels  us,  we  have  conceded 
all  this,  what  remains  ?  For  answer  we  say  the 
whole  gospel  of  redemption.  We  can  now,  unhar- 
assed  and  unencumbered,  without  concealment  or 
arriere  pensee,  point  the  modern  man  to  Christianity's 
inestimable  and  enduring  treasure.  We  come  again 
to  the  Church's  first  age,  not  to  discuss  its  crudity 
of  opinion,  but  to  recognise  its  unique  gift  to  the 
world.  That  gift  was  an  unspeakable  joy  and  an 
incomparable  spiritual  reinforcement.  No  one  can 
understanding^  read  the  story  without  realising 
this.  Matthew  Arnold  saw  it,  and  has  put  his 
impression  in  unforgettable  words  :  "  It  is  this 
which  made  the  fortune  of  Christianity,  its  gladness 
not  its  sorrow  ;  not  its  assigning  the  spiritual  world 
to  Christ  and  the  material  world  to  the  devil,  but 
its  drawing  from  the  spiritual  world  a  source  of 
joy  so  abundant  that  it  ran  over  upon  the  material 
world  and  transfigured  it."  There  is  no  doubt 
either  as  to  where  the  joy  came  from.     It  centred 


112  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

in  a  Person,  whose  presence  was  felt  in  the  soul, 
and  who  had  taught  people  the  Divine  secret  of 
loving  and  of  serving.  What  matter  to  us  their 
notions  about  Antichrist  or  the  millennium !  What 
does  matter,  and  that  infinitely,  is  their  secret  of 
living  and  of  loving.  They  had  tasted  the  purest 
joy  that  a  human  soul  can  know,  a  joy  which  no 
Ritz  banquet  will  ever  furnish  you.  And  that  was 
the  actual  contact  with  a  Perfect  Love.  It  was  in 
this  lay  the  Divinity  of  their  Master  ;  here  was  His 
eternal  gift.  It  was  because  the  weary  world  had 
never  in  its  long  history  tasted  such  joy  and  felt 
in  its  veins  so  conquering  a  poAver  as  now  appeared 
in  it,  that  we  call  this  the  Church's  great  moment. 

It  conquered  not  so  much  by  teaching  as  by  giving. 
The  Christian  love  offered  itseK  everywhere  without 
expectation  of  return.  It  lent  itself  "  hoping  for 
nothing  again."  As  that  early  Christian,  the  un- 
known writer  of  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  puts  it  : 
"  They  love  all  men  and  are  persecuted  by  all  ; 
they  are  poor  and  make  many  rich  ;  they  lack  all 
things  and  abound  in  all."  The  transfiguring  power 
of  this  new  spirit  turned  dungeons  into  palaces. 
Read  the  diary  of  that  lovely  soul,  Perpetua,  the 
young  mother  delivered  at  Carthage  to  the  wild 
beasts  for  her  faith.  She  writes  :  "  The  gaol 
became  to  me  suddenly  like  a  palace,  so  that  I  Hked 
to  be  there  better  than  anywhere  else."  The 
disciples  felt,  as  Justin  Martyr  has  it,  that  nothing 
that  happened  to  them  could  be  an  evil  so  long  as 
their  Lord  was  with  them. 

And  that,  we  say,  is  Christianity,  the  eternal 
religion.     It  is  love  thrilled  by  a  felt  contact  with 


THE  CHURCH'S  GREAT  MOMENT   113 

One  whose  life  and  soul  were  Love  Incarnate,  love 
that  goes  forth  in  constant  joyful  service.  It  is  the 
Church's  mission  to  preach,  and  still  more  to  exhibit 
this  as  the  whole  secret  of  Hving.  When  we  contrast 
the  programme  with  the  course  that  has  actually 
been  taken,  we  realise  at  once  the  enormous  amount 
of  ground  and  of  time  that  have  been  lost.  The 
Church,  century  after  century,  has  been  trying  to 
stuff  the  brain — and  that  with  most  inferior  material 
— instead  of  to  train  the  heart.  The  world,  break- 
ing here  from  the  tutelage  of  the  Church,  has  of  late 
carried  on  its  own  intellectual  affairs  to  its  enormous 
mental  advantage.  But  its  heart  is  starved.  What 
it  craves  now  is  precisely  the  thing  Christianity 
has  to  give,  if  it  will  only  open  its  treasure  house. 

When  the  Church  reaches  once  more  that  first 
temper  ;  when  it  offers  to  men  what  the  first 
believers  offered,  its  great  moment  will  have  come 
again.  It  has  centuries  of  lost  time  to  make  up. 
It  has  to  retrace  long  leagues  of  wandering  in  order 
to  get  back  to  the  track.  We  need  not  trouble 
about  the  revelation  of  truth.  That  is  streaming 
in  upon  us  from  all  quarters.  What  we  want  is  to 
enter  again  into  the  Gospel's  open  secret.  When 
the  Church  has  caught  afresh  its  first  great  rapture 
of  love  and  set  it  forth  in  the  works  that  follow, 
there  will  be  no  infidels  in  sight. 


Part  II 
SOCIAL 


XII 

The   Social  Pressure 

Victor  Hugo  once  spoke  of  the  poor  as  the  cary- 
atides of  modern  civilisation  ;  pathetic  human  figures 
upbearing  on  their  patient  shoulders  the  whole 
enormous  weight  of  the  social  structure.  The  figure 
is  undoubtedly  an  exaggeration.  In  some  impor- 
tant respects  it  is,  indeed,  the  very  opposite  of  the 
truth.  The  pressure  of  the  social  system,  in  so  far 
as  it  is  actively  realised,  is  felt  at  its  utmost  by 
the  men  who  are  highest  rather  than  by  those  who 
are  lowest.  It  is  the  statesman,  harassed  daily  and 
nightly  by  his  enormous  responsibilities ;  the  pro- 
phet of  the  age  who  carries  in  his  soul  the  burden  of 
its  sin  and  need,  far  more  than  the  hand  worker, 
who  know  the  downward  thrust  of  the  mass  they 
help  to  carry. 

Nevertheless  the  simile  of  the  great  Frenchman 
remains  with  us  as  setting  forth  vividly  and  with 
sufficient  accuracy  the  features  of  a  position  which 
is  becoming  to  the  modern  world  daily  more  intoler- 
able. Amongst  our  poor  there  is  a  pressure  being 
apphed,  not  indeed  of  imperial  anxieties,  of  the 
burdens  of  the  State,  but  of  sheer  material  con- 
ditions  which,   as   the  weight   of  them  increases, 

n? 


118  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

squeezes  out  all  the  fine  flavour  of  living,  and 
leaves  only  a  dull  endurance  behind.  That  in 
itself  is  no  new  thing.  What  is  new  is  the  social 
consciousness  about  it.  The  world  to-day  is  not 
comfortable  at  its  meals.  A  whiff  from  the  Chicago 
stockyards  blows  across  the  dinner  table  and  spoils 
the  appetite.  Nearer  home  we  have  "  Sweating 
Exhibitions,"  with  revelations  scarcely  less  dis- 
composing. Here  we  see  good  honest  people  mak- 
ing 144  match-boxes  in  order  to  earn  twopence. 
And  that  is  not  the  worst.  Down  in  this  pit, 
where  our  brethren  have  been  thrust  to  struggle  in 
its  black  darkness  for  breath  and  Ufe,  all  the  condi- 
tions are  topsy-turvy.  Higher  up  it  is  not  only 
that  money  is  earned  quickly  and  easily  ;  there 
is  the  same  advantage  in  the  spending  of  it.  At 
the  bottom  it  is  the  other  way — you  earn  the 
minimum,  you  are  compelled  to  spend  the  maxi- 
mum. In  the  middle-class  a  man  with  £800  a 
year  will  give  perhaps  £80  a  year  for  his  house,  and 
think  it  enough.  He  secures  a  relatively  com- 
modious and  well-situated  dwelling  for  a  tenth  of  his 
income.  Our  match-box  makers,  man  and  wife, 
who  by  unremitting  toil,  at  a  gross  for  twopence, 
earn  together  twelve  shilhngs  a  w^eek,  spend  j)rob- 
ably  six  shilhngs  of  it  on  the  rent  of  two  fetid 
rooms.  For  a  tenth  of  his  income  our  middle- 
class  man  gets  what  to  these  others  would  be  a 
palace  ;  for  their  own  squalid  holes  they  pay  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  income.  Sweated  London  is 
indeed  the  "  city  of  dreadful  night."  As  we  con- 
template it  we  are  reminded  of  the  speculation  of 
old  Vanini,  who,  when  he  saw  the  misery  about  him. 


THE  SOCIAL  PRESSURE  119 

asked  whether  men  were  not  evil  spirits  who  had 
passed  into  human  form  and  were  now  atoning  for 
their  crimes  ! 

But  is  pessimism  the  proper  attitude  here  ? 
We  do  not  think  so.  "  Despair,"  said  Vauven- 
argues,  "  is  the  worst  of  our  errors,"  and  the  adage  is 
as  applicable  to  the  misfortunes  of  others  as  to  our 
own.  The  remarkable  thing  is  that  the  poor  them- 
selves, the  victims  of  our  present  system,  are  not 
themselves  pessimists.  We  see  a  great  deal  more 
of  their  need  than  they  do  themselves.  Nature, 
who  means  well  by  us  all,  brings  in  here  her  kindly 
art  of  the  balance.  She  so  cunningly  fits  the  con- 
sciousness to  the  condition.  The  pig  enjoys  his 
sty  better  than  any  palace  we  could  build  for  him. 
And  remember,  all  of  us,  as  compared  with  the  ideal 
state,  are  in  the  sty.  M.  Levy-Bruhl  holds  that 
"  our  civilisation  in  some  respects  will  seem  as 
repulsive  to  our  descendants  of  the  fiftieth  century 
as  that  of  Dahomey  does  to  us."  He  may  be 
right,  but  our  deplorable  inferiority  to  the  coming 
fiftieth  century  does  not  disgust  us  with  hfe  as  it  is. 
It  is  astonishing  on  what  a  small  capital  a  sense  of 
happiness  will  maintain  itself.  What  to  the  out- 
sider seems  sheer  misery  is  not  so  to  the  soul  in- 
side.    Were  it  otherwise  men  would  not  go  on  living. 

But  considerations  of  this  kind,  while  an  argument 
against  pessimism,  are  no  argument  for  the  status 
quo.  The  best  feature  of  the  present  situation  is 
the  revolt  against  it.  As  we  have  already  observed, 
what  is  new  in  the  condition  is  the  feeling  about  it. 
Society  has  in  its  heart  a  redemptive  force  which 
yearns  to  deUver  the  captive  and  to  break  every 


120  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

yoke.  Imagine  the  moral  distance  we  have  travelled 
from  the  day  when  mediaeval  barons  could  feast 
merrily  in  their  halls,  all  the  merrier  for  knowing 
that  sixty  feet  down  beneath  them  were  miserable 
wretches,  their  captives,  suffocating  in  horrible 
oubliettes,  without  light  or  air  or  hope  !  To-day 
we  do  not  feel  it  right  to  claim  our  happiness  while 
our  fellow-creatures  are  unhappy.  Another  hope- 
ful element  in  the  consciousness  of  to-day  is  the 
growing  certainty  that  there  is  no  human  wrong 
that  cannot  be  set  right.  We  believe  that  good  is 
not  only  better  than  bad,  but  that  it  is  stronger  and  is 
going  to  win.  The  bad  things  are  being  beaten  one 
by  one.  The  Chicago  scandals  were  bad,  but  Southern 
slavery  was  worse.  America,  which  put  down 
slavery,  will,  if  we  give  her  time,  put  her  other  bad 
things  down.  England  by  her  Factory  Acts  swept 
away  the  horrors  of  forced  and  infantile  labour  in 
the  mills.  Now  that  the  public  conscience  is  awake 
she  wiU  carry  the  same  reform  into  the  homes. 

The  problem  of  the  social  pressure  is  a  tremendous 
one,  full  of  every  imaginable  comphcation,  yet  we 
are  beginning  to  see  our  way  in  it.  What  has  to  be 
done,  we  recognise,  is  to  untangle  the  several  threads 
of  it  and  follow  them  up.  Some  of  the  apparently 
most  hopeless  features  look  far  less  hopeless  to-day 
than  they  did  not  long  ago.  John  Stuart  Mill's 
pessimistic  conclusion,  for  instance,  that,  whatever 
our  methods  of  relief,  the  population  would  go 
on  increasing  always  to  starvation  point,  is  no 
longer  held.  There  are,  instead,  nations  already 
crying  out  that  their  population  is  decreasing. 

But  keeping  now  to  the  people  who  are  here, 


THE  SOCIAL  PRESSURE  121 

what  do  we  find  ?  At  our  bottom  stage  we  have 
three  ragged  regiments — the  badly  employed,  the 
unemployed,  the  unemployable.  But  there  is  one 
classification  that  includes  them  all,  and  which 
has  to  be  remembered  in  any  scheme  of  reform. 
These  people  almost  without  exception  are  the 
unskilled.  The  honest  among  them  are  sweated 
because  they  know  no  craft  that  will  bring  them  a 
better  wage.  AbiUty  always  commands  its  price. 
But  now  the  question  is,  Can  we  not  to  a  certain 
extent  create  ability  ?  While  the  nation  is  spend- 
ing all  this  money  on  education,  might  it  not  use 
some  of  it  in  teaching  brains  and  fingers  to  earn  a 
Hving  ?  What  better  schooling,  after  all,  than  that 
which  puts  every  social  unit  on  the  way  to  independ- 
ence ?  And  when  in  addition  the  State  has  learned 
the  lesson  that  it  has  not  done  with  its  young  when 
they  have  reached  the  age  of  thirteen,  but  enters  then 
on  its  chief  responsibility  towards  them  ;  when, 
reahsing  this,  it  secures  to  our  youth  the  old  appren- 
ticeship system,  or  some  efficient  substitute  for  it, 
we  shall  by  degrees  clear  out  of  the  way  this  huge, 
helpless  element  of  the  unskilled,  who  at  present  are 
the  despair  of  the  philanthropist. 

Take  another  side  of  the  question.  Our  badly 
employed  are,  we  say,  badly  paid  and  badly  housed. 
The  unemployed  are  badly  housed  and  not  paid  at 
all.  How  has  this  state  of  things  arisen  ?  Here  is 
the  problem  of  the  land  and  of  the  city.  The  people 
have  drained  from  the  country  into  the  town,  till 
the  town  is  gorged.  There  are  two  men  for  one 
job,  hence  the  wage  of  it  goes  down  ;  there  are  two 
men  for  the  one  room,  hence  the  price  of  it  goes  up. 


122  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

Evidently  this  process  must  be  stopped.  And  it 
will  be  stopped  by  making  country  work  at  once 
attractive  and  profitable.  We  are  ripe  to-day  for  a 
rural  renaissance.  France  was  saved  from  ruin  by 
the  Revolution,  which  transformed  it  from  feudalism 
to  a  system  of  peasant  proprietors.  A  still  more 
modern  instance  is  Denmark,  which  a  century  ago 
was  a  land  of  large  estates,  as  England  is  to-day. 
It,  too,  has  become  a  land  of  peasant  proprietors. 
The  State  has  passed  Acts  which  enabled  the  labour- 
ers to  purchase  small  holdings.  In  addition  it  has 
established  agricultural  schools,  a  system  of  co- 
operation and  of  cheap  railway  rates.  It  turned  from 
unprofitable  corn-growing  to  butter,  bacon  and 
eggs.  The  result  is  that  Denmark  is  to-day,  per- 
haps, the  most  flourishing  agricultural  country 
in  the  world.  It  is  next  to  us  in  wealth,  but 
ahead  of  us  in  that,  while  our  wealth  is  con- 
centrated, hers  is  diffused.  When  England, 
following  this  example,  finds  the  moral  courage  to 
break  with  its  f eudaUsm  and  to  open  the  land  to  the 
people,  half  its  poverty  problem  will  have  been 
solved. 

Meantime  we  have  the  people  in  the  towns 
sweated  at  their  work,  hosts  of  them  unemployed, 
herding  in  unspeakable  tenements.  Can  we  not 
straightway  introduce  here  some  betterment  ? 
There  is  no  doubt  of  it.  We  have  so  much  to  learn 
in  these  matters  from  our  better-instructed  neigh- 
bours. Germany,  for  instance,  is,  in  this  whole 
civic  problem,  miles  ahead  of  us.  Why  have  we 
not  the  counterpart  of  its  splendid  Labour  Bureaux 
such    as    those    which    in    Prussia,    Wurtemberg, 


THE  SOCIAL  PRESSURE  123 

Baden  and  Bavaria  filled  up  last  year  close  on  half 
a  million  situations  ?  Why  not  buildings  Hke 
those  in  BerHn,  where  in  waiting-rooms,  supplied 
with  books,  newspapers  and  refreshments  almost 
at  cost  price,  the  unemployed  gather  to  receive 
information  as  to  all  the  openings  in  their  own  hne  ? 
Why  have  we  not  in  our  great  towns  something  at 
least  as  good  as  the  Elberfeldt  system,  under  wliich  in 
the  great  German  cities  the  municipaUties  have 
organised  an  army  of  unpaid  visitors  of  the  poor,  a 
system  by  which,  in  times  of  need,  every  man, 
woman  and  child  in  the  several  districts  is  secured 
from  want,  and  that  without  any  breaking  up  of  the 
home  ? 

And,  lastly,  the  badly  employed,  the  sweated 
people,  our  matchbox  makers,  our  fur-pullers,  our 
sack-stitchers  and  the  like.  Is  there  no  remedy  for 
their  condition  ?  The  Germans  beheve  there  is, 
and  so  do  our  AustraHan  cousins.  In  the  Reichstag 
the  Social  Democrats  have  introduced  a  Bill  for 
regulating  home  industries  which  fixes  the  minimum 
cubic  space  for  each  worker,  compels  the  registration 
both  of  workers  and  employers,  and  fixes  the  rate  of 
wages  by  local  Conciliation  Boards.  In  the  clothing 
trade  in  Victoria  a  council  has  been  established, 
representing  both  employers  and  employed,  which 
fixes  the  rate  of  wages,  and  is  working  successfully 
to  the  enormous  benefit  of  the  home  worker.  It 
is  quite  certain  we  must  have  some  such  develop- 
ment in  England.  Where  home  industries  are 
carried  on  there  must  be  inspection  of  the  homes. 
The  State  must  interpose  itself  between  the  sweater 
and  his  victim,  as  it  interposed  itself  eighty  years  ago 


124  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

between  the  manufacturer  and  the  workhouse  boy- 
and-girl  slaves  he  employed. 

England  is,  it  is  evident,  awaking  to  the  facts  of 
the  present  position.  Its  conscience  is  stirred. 
It  is  aware  there  is  something  wrong.  But  it  is  not 
fully  awake.  It  is  not  so  aware  as  it  should  be  of 
its  immediate  responsibihty.  Shall  we  palter  with 
our  miserable  conventions,  be  tied  for  ever  by  our 
feudal  traditions,  when,  if  we  will  only  put  forth  the 
strength  that  is  in  our  hand,  guided  by  the  know- 
ledge that  is  in  our  brain,  we  can  straightway 
drain  dry  the  Serbonian  bog  in  which  our  poor 
are  weltering,  and  plant  them  out  on  wholesome 
ground,  in  full  view  of  the  sun  ? 


XIII 
Our   Unprotected    Classes 

In  the  last  chapter  we  discussed  some  phases  of 
the  social  problem  as  it  offers  itself  to-day  in  Eng- 
land. We  dealt  specially  with  the  "  three  ragged 
regiments  "  at  the  bottom  of  our  system — the 
badly  employed,  the  unemployed  and  the  unem- 
ployable. But  there  are  people  who,  while  tech- 
nically not  at  the  bottom,  are  nevertheless  under- 
neath— in  a  position  which  to  them  seems  one 
exactly  between  the  upper  and  the  nether  mill- 
stones, and  who  feel  all  the  mercilessness  of  their 
inexorable  grind.  We  are  beginning  to  wonder 
whether  the  bottom  dog  of  all  is  most  to  be  pitied, 
whether  others,  better  fed,  maybe,  than  our  stray 
mongrel,  are  not  really  worse  off,  fattened  perhaps 
for  the  vivisection-table  !  Of  Avhat  avail  to  promote 
you  from  the  cellar  to  the  ground-floor,  if  it  is 
only  that  you  may  daily  feel  the  cold  steel  cutting 
into  nerve  and  tendon  ?  As  we  listen  to  these 
stories  of  driven  and  tortured  people,  we  realise 
how  utterly  anomalous,  ragged  and  patched  a  thing 
our  civilisation  is.  We  could  make  a  new  division 
of  society,  into  the  protected  and  the  unprotected. 
And  the  division,  as  we  shall  see,  is  not  the  same 

125 


126  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

as  the  common  one  between  the  "  upper  "  and  the 
"  lower  "  classes.  It  cuts  across  these  distinctions. 
It  is  not  the  artisan  w^ho  is  unprotected.  The 
sharpest  pinch  of  our  present  system  is  felt  else- 
where. 

Before  coming  to  particulars  of  what  we  mean, 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  remark  on  that  new"  social 
consciousness  wlij.ch  is  rising  in  our  midst,  and 
which  is  impelling  men  of  all  classes  and  shades 
of  opinion  to  discuss  these  themes  as  they  w^ere 
never  discussed  before.  We  are  reaching  an  idea 
of  the  State  and  its  functions  which,  before  we 
have  finished  with  it,  will  make  all  things  new. 
It  is  curious  to  note  here  the  difference  between 
the  modern  feeUng  on  this  theme  and  that  of  the 
early  world.  The  Greek  philosophers  had  a  very 
clear — and,  in  some  respects,  a  very  high — con- 
ception of  society  considered  as  a  universal  bond. 
But  the  emphasis  here  was  on  the  duty  of  the 
individual  to  the  State,  not  the  duty  of  the  State 
to  the  individual.  Never,  surely,  was  this  view 
carried  to  a  loftier  height  than  where  Socrates,  in 
the  "  Crito,"  sketches  the  place  of  the  citizen  : 
"  Has  a  philosopher  Uke  you  failed  to  discover 
that  our  country  is  more  to  be  valued  and  higher 
and  holier  far  than  mother  or  father  or  any  an- 
cestor ?  .  .  .  And  when  we  are  punished  by 
her,  whether  with  imprisonment  or  stripes,  the 
punishment  is  to  be  endured  in  silence  ;  and  if  she 
leads  us  to  death  or  wounds  in  battle,  thither  we 
follow  as  is  right  ;  neither  may  anyone  yield  or 
retreat  or  leave  his  rank,  but  whether  in  battle 
or  in  a  court  of  law,  or  in  any  other  place,  he  must 


OUR  UNPROTECTED  CLASSES  127 

do  what  liis  city  and  his  country  order  him."  A 
fine  development  indeed  of  the  communal  conscience 
on  one  side— one  which,  if  we  measured  ourselves 
by  it,  would  make  some  of  us  look  sufficiently 
small.  But  the  Greek  had  no  feeling  such  as 
throbs  in  us  to-day  for  the  other  side  of  the  account. 
He  had  small  sense  of  that  common  responsibility 
for^  the  well-being  of  every  member  of  the  State 
which  is  the  note  of  the  finest  spirits  of  our  time. 
The  fact  that  he  built  society  on  slavery  as  a  normal 
condition  is  sufficient  evidence  of  that. 

But  in  this  new  light  of  to-day  how  do  matters 
look  ?  Under  the  Divine  pressure  of  the  Christian 
sentiment  our  programme,  we  say,  is  of  a  new 
solidarity  in  which  we  will  indeed  "bear  each 
other's  burdens  "  ;  share  the  burden  so  that  it 
shall  not  press  unfairly  on  any  shoulders  ;  be 
satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  a  social  state  which 
secures  to  every  soul  in  it  its  opportunity  of  happi- 
ness. As  we  study  the  actual  condition,  however, 
what  do  we  find  ?  A  society  entirely  out  of  hand  ; 
some  portions  organised  into  effectiveness  and 
security,  while  other  great  masses  of  it  are  strug- 
gUng  helpless  in  the  grip  of  alien  and  merciless 
powers. 

Who  and  where  are  our  unprotected  classes  ? 
To  begin  at  the  beginning  one  cannot  forbear  a 
word,  if  only  a  word  in  passing,  on  the  most  help- 
less of  all,  the  babes  born  yesterday.  It  is  a  state 
of  things  infinitely  humihating,  but  which  we 
have  to  face,  that  over  large  tracts  of  EngHsh 
fife  the  mother-instinct  is  not  to  be  trusted  as  the 
guardian  of  infancy.     We  have  left  the  children 


128  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

to  that  with  the  result  that  they  die  like  flies. 
The  statistics,  in  some  of  our  northern  towns  espe- 
cially, are  too  awful  to  contemplate.  We  think 
twenty  in  a  thousand  a  sufficiently  high  death- 
rate  for  grown-up  people.  What  think  we  of  274 
babes  per  thousand  as  the  death-rate  of  some 
Lancashire  towns  ?  These  children  are  born  into 
death-traps.  Lucretius,  in  his  pessimistic  way, 
compares  the  new-born  child  to  a  shipwrecked 
mariner  cast  on  a  barren  shore  ;  its  wail  fitting 
to  a  being  with  so  much  trouble  to  pass  through. 
The  simile  is  not  harsh  enough  for  the  conditions 
we  are  here  considering.  The  wail  in  these  cases 
would  be  not  so  much  that  of  a  mariner  wondering 
where  he  will  get  his  subsistence,  as  of  a  prisoner 
expecting  immediate  execution.  These  deaths  come 
not  so  much  from  heartlessness  as  from  ignorance 
and  the  pressure  of  unwholesome  surroundings. 
And  the  mother-soul  of  the  community,  its  best 
heart  and  mind,  has  now  for  its  task  an  education 
of  our  women  workers  in  true  motherhood,  and 
such  a  bettering  of  home  conditions  as  shaU  give 
both  mother  and  child  a  chance. 

It  is  not,  however,  here  that  the  shoe  pinches 
most.  The  child  does  not  know  its  disabilities  or 
its  danger.  The  most  really  hapless  of  our  com- 
munity are  those  who  know  all  the  hardness  of 
their  lot  and  see  no  shield  against  it  or  escape 
from  it.  What  of  our  drapers'  assistants,  clerks 
and  warehousemen  ?  As  we  read  their  stories, 
our  question  is  whether  in  the  whole  of  our  social 
fabric  there  are  any  more  tightly  wedged  or  harder 
pressed  than  these  ?     We  hear  of  shop  employes 


OUR  UNPROTECTED  CLASSES         129 

who  are  compelled  to  tell  lies  as  part  of  the  day's 
work  ;  to  be  co-partners  in  fraud  without,  how- 
ever, sharing  the  profits.  While  the  artisan  has 
his  free  Saturday  afternoon  and  evening,  this 
black-coated  brother  of  his,  on  a  pittance  often 
lower  than  his  own,  is  toiling  till  midnight.  What 
becomes  of  shop  assistants  when  they  grow  old  ? 
H.  G.  Wells,  who  knows  his  subject  at  first-hand, 
gives  us  the  reply  in  "  Kipps  "  :  "  When  you  get  too 
old  to  work  they  chuck  you  away.  Lor,  you  find 
old  drapers  everywhere — tramps,  beggars,  dock 
labourers,  'bus  conductors — quod.  Anjrwhere  but 
in  a  crib.  I  tell  you  we're  in  a  blessed  drainpipe, 
and  we've  got  to  crawl  along  it  till  we  die."  One 
wonders  how  many  fellow-citizens  in  this  "  merrie 
England  "  of  ours  find  themselves  to-day  in  pre- 
cisely this  situation  ;  who  have  no  capital  and 
no  chance  of  saving  any  ;  who,  well  or  ill,  have  to 
stand  to  their  work,  knowing  the  eyes  that  are  on 
them,  the  fines  waiting  to  be  inflicted,  the  notice 
to  quit  which  hangs  over  them  ;  who  shudder  at 
the  thought  of  growing  old,  knowing  this  to  be  the 
unpardonable  sin  ;  who  are  without  joy  in  the 
present  and  with  no  future  that  will  bear  looking  at ! 
And  on  either  side  of  this  forlorn  tract  of  our 
English  life  stretch  others,  which,  perhaps,  exceed 
it  in  forlornness.  There  is  the  case  of  the  "  general  " 
in  the  poorer  households.  Dickens  sketched  this 
for  us  in  "  the  small  servant,"  whom  Mr.  Dick 
Swiveller  dubbed  "  the  Marchioness  "  : 

"  Do  you  see  this  ?  "  said  Miss  Brass,  shaving  off  about  two 
square  inches  of  cold  mutton,  after  all  this  preparation,  and 
holding  it  out  on  the  point  of  the  fork. 

9 


130  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

The  small  servant  looked  hard  enough  at  it  with  her  hungry 
eyes  to  see  every  shred  of  it,  small  as  it  was,  and  answered  "  Yes." 

"  Then  don't  you  ever  go  and  say,"  retorted  Miss  Sally* 
"  that  you  hadn't  meat  here." 

One  could  add  without  end  to  the  list  of  our 
unprotected.  There  are  governesses,  strangers  in 
the  household,  suspended,  like  Mahomet's  coffin, 
between  the  two  worlds  of  the  drawing-room  and 
the  kitchen,  recognised  by  neither  ;  the  barmaids 
exposed  for  their  Uvehhood  to  endlessly  long  hours, 
to  poisonous  fumes,  to  the  worst  temptations. 
To  right  and  left  of  us,  on  all  sides  indeed,  stretches 
this  weary,  dispirited  array  of  our  undefended. 
It  is  time  to  ask  some  questions  about  them. 

We  perceive  three  factors  entering  into  their 
condition,  and  to  be  reckoned  with  in  any  proposed 
amelioration  ;  these  are  the  State,  the  employer, 
and  themselves.  Let  us  take  the  last  first.  When 
we  look  over  the  classes  we  have  enumerated, 
and  others  who  are  allied  to  them,  we  are  struck 
with  one  fact.  The}^  all  of  them,  from  the  assistant 
in  the  shop  to  Mary  Anne  in  the  kitchen,  are  in  the 
class  of  the  unorganised.  It  seems  never  to  have 
occurred  to  these  workers  to  inquire  how  other 
classes  have  attained  their  liberties.  The  working 
man  is  considered  a  grade  lower  socially  than  the 
shopman,  but  he  has  attained  to  freedom,  to  privi- 
leges, to  an  independence  beyond  the  dreams  of 
the  other.  And  he  has  done  this  simply  by  com- 
bination. He  has  opposed  power  to  power  and 
won  by  that.  It  may  seem  a  humiliating  truth, 
but  it  is  one  which  all  historians  and  sociologists 
now   recognise,    that    so    far    spiritual    and    moral 


OUR  UNPROTECTED  CLASSES         131 

agencies  alone  have  never  succeeded  in  bringing 
about  social  amelioration.   The  extinction  of  slavery 
in   Europe   was   not  brought   about   by   Christian 
preaching.     For    centuries    after    Christianity    had 
estabhshed  itself  slavery  was  accepted  as  part  of 
the  social  order.     We  had  slaves  in  England  up  to 
the  reign   of  Edward  VI.     A   great   class   change 
comes  from  a  redistribution  of  power.     To  move 
anything,   whether  a  people   or  a  mountain,  you 
must  get  the  requisite  pressure.     As  long  as  the 
artisan  class  was  unorganised  its  power,  so  far  as 
its  own  objects  were  concerned,  was  a  waste  Niagara, 
an  unharnessed  energy  roaring  uselessly  into  the 
abyss.     When  its  thinkers  came  along,  and  drilled 
and  regimented  the  workers  into  unions  and  trade 
combinations,  their  Niagara,  harnessed  this  time, 
and   turned    on   the   machine,   showed   itself  irre- 
sistible over  the  whole  realm  of  industry.     When 
our  unprotected  classes  have  in  like  manner  realised 
their  latent  energy  ;    when  thinkers  arise  amongst 
them,  who,"with  knowledge  of  their  special  needs, 
know  how  to  combine  for  securing  them,  their  day 
of  deliverance  will  dawn.     Every  class,  in  a  degree 
at  least,  works  out  its  own  salvation. 

Meantime  the  employer.  We  should  be  griev- 
ously misunderstood  if  what  has  been  said  were 
regarded  as  an  attempt  to  set  one  class  against 
another,  or  as  an  indictment  of  the  employer  class 
as  such.  One  recognises  with  gladness  the  great 
and,  we  believe,  constantly  increasing  host  of 
large-minded  employers  who  make  the  interest 
of  their  workers  theu^  own,  who  believe  with  Ruskin 
that  "  the  only  wealth  consists  in  noble  and  happy 


132  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

human  beings."  We  know,  too,  that  many  em- 
ployers drive  because  they  themselves  are  driven. 
They,  with  the  people  under  them,  are  the  victims 
alike  of  a  remorseless  competition.  Yet  there  are 
two  things  to  be  said  to  our  capitalist  brother  ;  two 
things  to  warn  him  against.  One  is  the  fatal 
notion,  which  aU  the  slavery  systems  of  the  past 
and  all  the  Protectionist  systems  of  to-day  have 
consciously  or  unconsciously  acted  upon — that 
human  life,  like  the  raw  materials  of  production, 
is  a  means  to  an  end,  that  end  being  the  creation  of 
wealth.  A  fatal  notion  we  say,  as  opposed  to 
political  economy  as  it  is  to  heaven's  economy. 
For  no  community  and  no  trade  system  will  ever 
prosper  or  has  ever  prospered  w^hich  regards  human 
Ufe  as  a  mere  means,  as  anything  less  than  an  end 
in  itself.  When  your  system  depresses  the  human, 
it  depresses  and  in  the  end  ruins  everything,  your- 
seK  included.  It  is  as  good  as  over  with  you,  my 
friend,  when  your  one  aim  is  at  all  costs  to  possess 
money  ;  "to  possess  it,"  as  says  prophet  Carlyle, 
"  to  have  your  bloated  vanities  fostered  into 
monstrosity  by  it,  your  foul  passions  blown  into 
explosion  by  it,  your  heart  and  perhaps  your  very 
stomach  ruined  with  intoxication  by  it ;  your 
poor  Ufe  and  all  its  manifold  activities  stunned 
into  frenzy  and  comatose  sleep  by  it — in  one  word, 
as  the  old  prophets  said, your  soul  for  ever  lost  by  it." 
And  the  other  warning — one  for  women  employers 
in  households  not  less  than  men  employers  in  shop 
and  warehouse — is  against  the  lust  of  mere  order- 
ing, of  governing,  of  the  exercise  of  power.  When 
aU  possible  readjustments  have  been  made,  when 


OUR  UNPROTECTED  CLASSES         133 

every  class  has  secured  its  fullest  possible  liberties, 
it  will  yet  remain,  and  that  by  the  very  order  of 
Nature,  that  the  mass  of  our  fellow-creatures  will 
be,  in  some  way  or  other,  under  direction,  unpro- 
tected, in  the  sense  of  being  exposed  to  the  full 
force  of  another's  voUtion.  The  children  will  be 
ever  thus.  And  as  long  as  the  world  lasts  the 
weaker  will  stand  over  against  the  stronger  and  be 
ruled  by  him.  In  the  whole  realm  of  things  there 
is  surely  no  mandate  more  imperious  laid  upon 
us  than  this,  to  secure  a  proper  education  and 
governance  of  ourselves  in  the  use  of  power.  The 
world  will  not  have  reached  its  happiness  until 
every  holder  of  power— the  parent  with  the  child, 
the  mistress  with  the  maid,  the  master  with  the 
servant— has,  in  using  it,  learned  and  caught  the 
spirit  of  Christ. 


The    State   and    Happiness 

In  the  last  chapter  we  mentioned  three  factors  as 
entering  into  a  possible  social  amelioration — the 
employes  themselves,  the  employers,  and  the  State. 
This  last  demands  a  separate  and  special  treat- 
ment. By  the  State  here,  let  it  be  observed,  we 
do  not  mean  the  Government  simply,  but  the 
community  at  large — the  whole  sum  of  its  activities 
as  affecting  the  lot  of  each  separate  individual. 
The  question  now  before  us  is,  how  far  it  is  in  the 
power  of  our  social  system  to  secure  the  essential 
well-being  of  the  men,  women  and  children  who 
compose  it  ;  whether,  in  a  word,  it  is  possible  in  any 
degree  "  to  organise  happiness  "  ? 

It  is  hardly  necessary  at  this  time  of  day  to  argue 
the  question  whether  man  is  entitled  to  happiness 
or  intended  for  it.  There  have  been  ages,  and  at  no 
great  distance  from  our  own,  when  that  was  dis- 
tinctly arguable.  There  are,  indeed,  creeds  extant 
to-day  which  represent  man  as  intended  for  some- 
thing quite  the  opposite  of  happiness — as  under  a 
curse,  with  a  vast  proportion  of  his  number  born 
for  the  express  purpose  of  being  damned.  But 
to-day  we  search  in  vain  for  believers  in    them. 

13i 


THE  STATE  AND  HAPPINESS  135 

All  true  science  and  all  sane  philosophy  recognise 
pleasure  as  one  of  Nature's  most  clearly-marked 
ends.  When  we  speak  of  duty,  of  labour,  of  sacrifice, 
of  spiritual  development  as  great  objects  of  Ufe, 
we  are  offering  no  contradiction  to  the  earher 
thesis.  For  duty,  labour,  sacrifice,  development 
have,  all  of  them,  their  own  pleasures  attached. 
The  difference  between  high  and  low  in  ethics  is, 
we  see,  a  difference  in  the  quality  of  pleasure.  If 
Nature  has  any  articulate  message  at  all,  this 
surely,  of  her  design  for  our  happiness,  is  one  of  the 
distinctest.  All  her  normal  and  healthy  states 
yield  this  as  their  product.  Towards  this  tend  her 
marvellous  and  fine-strung  adaptations  ;  her  attune- 
ment  of  melody  to  the  ear,  of  beauty  to  the  eye,  of 
fruit  to  the  taste,  of  truth  to  the  mind.  Every 
faculty  in  its  exercise  yields  its  joy ;  we  can 
dig  our  pleasure  out  of  the  ground,  breathe  it 
in  with  the  morning  air,  meet  it  on  the  printed 
page,  hear  it  in  the  voice  of  our  friend.  The 
world  would  seem  to  exist  that  from  every  eye 
there  might  beam,  in  every  heart  there  might 
thrill,  this  exquisite,  invisible  something  we  call 
happiness. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  either  to  enlarge  on  the 
point  that  individual  happiness,  of  any  deep  or 
durable  kind,  depends  on  things  which  no  social 
manipulation  can  of  itself  secure.  Man  is  a  spiritual 
being  in  a  spiritual  universe.  As  Carlyle  has  it, 
"  the  spiritual  everywhere  originates  the  practical, 
models  it,  makes  it." 

It  takes  a  soul 
To  move  a  body ;   it  takes  a  high-souled  man 
To  move  the  masses    .     .     .    even  to  a  cleaner  stye. 


136  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

We  will  take  that  for  granted,  and  come  now  to 
what  some  of  us  have  not  so  clearly  seen — that  man 
cannot  reach  his  true  spiritual  estate  apart  from  a 
true  social  one.  Just  as  in  this  world  his  soul 
cannot  get  on  without  his  body,  any  more  than 
his  body  can  get  on  without  his  soul,  so  in  the 
community ^the  two  things  have  ever  to  go  together. 
Let  anyone  who  imagines  that,  in  attending  to  a 
man's  spiritual  requirements  all  has  been  done  for 
him,  re-read  the  first  chapters  in  the  history  of 
Christianity.  One  of  the  immediate  results  of  the 
Day  of  Pentecost  was  a  redistribution  of  property. 
By  that  act  the  early  Church  affirmed  for  all  time 
the  principle  that  the  production  of  inner  emotions 
is  not  enough  as  a  rehgious  work.  There  must  also 
be  the  production  of  right  external  conditions. 
And  the  Church  Fathers  of  succeeding  centuries  were 
never  weary  of  insisting  on  that  point.  Let  any- 
one read  the  utterances  on  the  subject  of  wealth 
and  poverty  of  Tertulhan,  of  Basil,  of  Jerome,  of 
Chrysostom,  and  he  Avill  find  that  these  men  at 
least  knew  the  connection  between  economics  and 
the  highest  human  welfare. 

What,  then,  are  the  true  social  conditions  ? 
What  can  the  State,  the  community  in  its  corporate 
capacity,  do  as  an  organiser  of  happiness  ?  This 
is  an  old  theme  ;  one,  indeed,  that  has  been  the 
fascination  of  philosophers  in  every  age.  It  is 
distinctly  damping  to  study,  one  after  another, 
the  schemes  of  social  perfection  that  have  floated 
before  the  minds  of  men  from  Plato  to  Condorcet, 
from  More  to  Fourier.  They  have  come  to  so 
httle.     As  John  Morley  has  said,  it  is  one  of  the 


THE  STATE  AND  HAPPINESS         137 

discouragements  of  the  student  of  history  that  he 
finds  ideas  uttered  one  or  two  or  twenty  centuries 
ago  which  are  just  as  useful  and  just  as  Uttle  heeded 
now  as  they  were  when  they  were  made.  Man  is 
so  slow-moving  an  animal,  His  vision  travels  so 
much  faster  than  his  feet.  With  a  single  glance  of 
the  eye  he  beholds  the  distant  summit  which  it 
takes  him  endless  painful  climbing  to  reach. 

But  the  ideas  of  gospellers  and  philosophers 
ahke,  on  these  points,  though  as  yet  far  from 
realised,  are  not  lost.  We  are  nearer  to  them, 
indeed,  to-day  than  the  world  has  ever  been  before. 
Profoundly  interesting  is  it  to  note  how  these 
utterances  and  schemes,  scattered  over  the  ages,  all 
converge  upon  one  point.  There  is  an  extraordinary 
and,  as  it  were,  fateful  unanimity  in  them.  The 
message  of  the  primitive  Church,  the  utterances  of 
the  Fathers,  the  "  Repubhc  "  of  a  Plato,  the 
"  Utopia "  of  a  More,  the  economic  and  social 
schemes  of  a  Proudhon  and  a  Saint  Simon,  make, 
taken  together,  a  very  curious  medley  of  reading. 
One  could  hardly  imagine  a  wider  divergence  both 
of  temper  and  of  standpoint.  And  yet  these 
seemingly  discordant  voices  are  actually  sounding 
one  note.  You  can  boil  down  their  systems  into  a 
word.  They  all  preach  Sociahsm.  Plato  in  his 
Repubhc  would  have  no  excessively  rich  and  no 
excessively  poor  ;  TertulHan  declares  "  everything 
must  be  in  common  among  us,  except  women  "  ; 
More,  in  the  "  Utopia,"  argues  that  "  the  one  way 
to  the  wealth  of  a  community  is  that  equaUty  of 
all  things  should  be  brought  in  and  established  "  ; 
Fourier  would  divide   the   community   into   great 


138  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

common  households,  with  a  division  of  labour 
which  should  give  the  chief  honours  and  rewards 
to  those  who  performed  the  most  unpleasant  and 
drudging  tasks.  Later  there  have  been  the  Paris 
"  national  workshops "  of  1848,  and  the  anti- 
capitalist  propaganda  of  a  Karl  Marx  and  a  Lassalle. 

What,  now,  is  the  significance  of  this  note  ? 
Where  are  we  to-day  as  to  Sociahsm  ?  Assuredly 
it  is  to  be  reckoned  with.  A  great  deal 
of  its  contention  is  already  practically  accepted. 
Christian  ethics  on  the  one  side  and  economic 
science  on  the  other  have  been  working  for  its 
victory.  The  conception  of  society  as  an  organism, 
every  part  of  which  is  vitally  related  to  every  other  ; 
the  ill-health  of  one  organ  meaning  the  ill-health 
of  all,  is  fast  capturing  not  only  the  mind  of  the 
thinkers,  but  the  imagination  of  the  populace, 
and  will  undoubtedly  dominate  the  legislation  of 
the  coming  years.  Unhmited  laissez  faire  is  doomed 
as  a  policy.  The  State  is  a  family,  every  member 
of  which,  for  his  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  the 
entire  household,  is  to  be  looked  after. 

But  how  far  is  this  common  concern  and  common 
supervision  to  go  ?  It  is  here,  amid  all  the  schemes 
that  are  afoot,  we  reach  the  parting  of  the  ways. 
There  are  socialisms  and  socialisms.  The  term 
includes  ideas  fertile,  fruitful  and  already  half 
reahsed,  together  with  extravagances  which  the 
best  minds  have  already  seen  through  and  dropped 
as  impossible.  Amongst  the  latter  is  the  notion  of 
extinguishing  the  private  ownership  of  property. 
The  sense  of  possession  is  one  of  the  primitive 
human  instincts,  and  whoever  starts  to  fight  those 


THE  STATE  AND  HAPPINESS  139 

is  running  his  head  against  the  thickest  of  stone 
walls.  No  system  founded  on  such  a  principle  has 
ever  lasted.  The  New  Testament  communism 
speedily  merged  into  one  which  recognised  in- 
dividual rights.  The  sense  of  property  is  one  of 
Nature's  greatest  incentives  to  labour  and  one  of  her 
chief  est  rewards.  It  offers  a  happiness  of  its  own, 
solid,  intense  and  enduring,  which  humanity  cannot 
afford  to  part  with.  Think  of  the  diffused  joy  among 
the  eight  million  peasant  proprietors  of  France  ; 
the  deep-seated  satisfaction  with  which  these 
sturdy  toilers  put  spade  and  plough  into  a  soil  which 
they  call  their  own  !  The  man  who  owns,  though 
it  be  a  solitary  acre,  or  the  smallest  of  Savings- 
Bank  accounts,  is  no  anti-capitalist.  He  will  not 
be  robbed  of  his  bliss  of  possession.  Private 
property,  earned  and  held  as  the  reward  of  labour, 
is  part  of  that  nature -scheme  of  individual  develop- 
ment, by  which  evolution  works  to  the  constant 
enlargement  of  our  race.  To  abolish  it  would 
mean  the  death  of  progress. 

Where  then  does  our  Socialism  come  in  ?  The 
mention  of  the  French  peasant  proprietors  supplies 
us  with  the  answer.  The  true  Socialism  proposes 
not  the  extinction  of  property  but  its  universal 
diffusion.  We  would  give  every  man  his  joy  of  in- 
dividual possession.  It  is  here,  in  a  larger  system, 
that  individualism  and  communism  can  meet  and 
combine  their  separate  advantages.  We  want  all 
that  develops  individuality ;  we  want  also  all 
that  solidarity  can  offer.  The  policy  of  to-morrow 
will  be  a  union  of  these  two.  The  end  is  the  highest 
well-being  of  every  individual  man  ;    the   means, 


140  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the    use    for   his    benefit    of   all   that   the    wisest 
combination  can  secure. 

But  this  principle,  or  union  of  principles,  will,  in 
the  matter  of  capital  and  ownership,  work  out  one 
particular    result.     It    will    secure    the    individual 
right  of  possession,  but  it  will  limit  the  extent   of 
possession.     We  all  recognise  that  individual  liberty, 
precious  though  it  be,  has  to  be  hmited  in  certain 
directions  in  the  interests  of  society  generally — of 
the  larger  happiness.     I  am  allowed  the  possession 
of  a  revolver,  but  not  to  shoot  at  large  in  the  street 
with  it.     Where  the  use  of  a  given  personal  liberty 
is  a  proved  curse  to  the  community,  society  has  no 
scruples  in  curtaiUng  it.     And  this  curtailment  in 
the  general  interest  will  unquestionably  come  in  the 
matter    of   ownership.     We   are   already   clear   on 
certain  applications   of  the  principle.     We  run  a 
pubhc  road  through  private  property,  a  road  on 
which  the  pauper  has  the  same  rights  as  the  million- 
aire.    Were  a  multi-bilhonaire  to  propose  to  buy  up 
Middlesex,  his  billions  would  be  of  no  avail  against 
the  pubhc  sentiment.     But  we  are  on  the  way  to 
further  appHcations.     In  the  interest  of  the  highest 
happiness  of  the  highest  number  society  in  the  now 
near  future  will  lessen  the  gap  betw^een    extreme 
riches  and  extreme  proverty.     The  idle  rich  and 
the  idle  poor  are  equally  a  misery  to  themselves 
and  a   danger  to  the  community,   and   the  com- 
munity will  not  continue  indefinitely  to  tolerate 
their  existence.     In  their  own  interests  and  in  that 
of  the  common  weal  it  will  furnish  them  both  with 
a  conscience — its  own  conscience — with  occupation 
and  with  an  end  in  fife.     By  an  income-tax  which 


THE  STATE  AND  HAPPINESS         141 

will  absorb  private  accumulations  beyond  a  certain 
amount,  or  by  other  means,  society  will  secure  that 
the  wealth  of  the  nation  shall  be  diffused  rather 
than  concentrated,  that  its  surpluses  shall  be  devoted 
to  the  development  and  happiness  of  the  many 
rather  than  to  the  ruin,  through  extravagance,  of 
the  few. 

Another  of  the  great  private  possessions  of  Ufe 
is  time,  and  here  also  the  State  will  intervene  to 
secure  an  equitable  distribution.  ' '  What  time  may 
possibly  be  spared  from  the  necessary  occupations 
and  affairs  of  the  Commonwealth,  all  that  the 
citizens  should  withdraw  from  the  bodily  service  to 
the  free  hberty  of  the  mind  and  garnishing  of  the 
same."  This  ideal  of  the  "  Utopia  "  is  one  which 
we  are  far  enough  as  yet  from  realising.  The 
employe  in  shop  or  warehouse  works  with  one  eye 
on  the  clock.  He  hves  only,  in  his  own  feeling,  in 
the  too  brief  hour  that  intervenes  when  the  long 
toil  of  the  counter  is  over.  When  businesses  are 
co-operative,  and  the  worker  has  a  personal  share 
in  what  is  going,  those  work-hours  will  have,  ah  ! 
so  different  a  flavour  !  But  meantime,  what  has 
been  done  for  the  factory  in  protection  of  the 
worker  must  be  done  also  for  the  shop.  The  wage- 
earner,  in  this  the  most  trying  of  all  employments, 
must  have  his  boon  of  time,  a  solid  freehold  each 
day  of  hours  which  he  can  call  his  own  and  when 
he  can  feel  himself  a  man. 

The  State  can  do  much  to  organise  happiness. 
We  are  on  the  eve  of  vast  developments  in  this 
direction,  developments  in  which  the  poor,  the 
ignorant,    the    unprotected,    will    find    themselves 


142  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

backed  by  the  highest  intelUgence,  the  highest  con- 
science, and  the  best  resources  of  the  community 
to  which  they  belong.  In  a  railway  train  every 
passenger,  the  stupidest  as  well  as  the  wisest,  shares 
in  the  skill  of  the  engineer,  the  skill  that  built  the 
road  and  that  carries  him  along  it.  What  we  are 
now  endeavouring  for  is  that,  in  like  manner, 
every  man,  woman  and  child  of  the  community 
shall  have,  for  the  favourable  issue  of  their  life- 
battle,  not  only  what  capacity  lies  in  their  own 
poor  body  and  mind,  but  the  reinforcement  of  the 
nation's  highest  brain  and  heart,  to  shield,  to 
encourage  and  to  inspire. 


XV 
The  Ethics  of  Ownership 

"  What  I  am  complaining  of,"  says  Dr.  Gore  in 
one  of  his  Bampton  Lectures,  "  is — not  that  com- 
mercial and  social  selfishness  exists  in  the  world,  or 
even  that  it  appears  to  dominate  in  society  ;  but 
that  its  profound  antagonism  to  the  spirit  of  Christ  is 
not  recognised,  that  there  is  not  among  us  anything 
that  can  be  called  an  adequate  conception  of  what 
Christian  moraUty  means . ' '  Excellent  words ,  which 
the  Church  of  all  denominations  would  just  now 
do  well  to  take  note  of.  We  wonder  w^hether  it  has 
dawned  upon  the  average  ecclesiastic  that,  in  the 
coming  generation,  the  one  question  that  will  concern 
him  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us,  is  not  so  much  the 
theological  as  the  social  question  ;  v/hether  he 
properly  understands  that  the  issue  on  which  the 
Church  will  stand  or  fall  is  not  its  attitude  to  baptism 
or  prevenient  grace,  but  its  attitude  to  the  tremend- 
ous struggle  on  which  the  world  is  now  visibly 
entering  for  man's  elementary  rights  ?  Here  in 
England,  for  instance,  it  is  truer  than  ever  what 
Carlyle  said  half  a  century  ago  :  "  What  the  Uni- 
verse was  thought  to  be  in  Judaea  and  other  places, 
this,  too,  may  be  very  interesting  to  know  ;    but 

U3 


144  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

what  it  is  in  England  here,  where  we  live  and  have 
our  work  to  do,  that  is  the  interesting  point." 
The  whole  problem  of  how  men  should  live  together, 
of  how  they  should  share  amongst  them  the  goods  of 
life,  is  up  for  rehearing,  and  no  teaching  institution, 
by  whatsoever  venerable  name  it  may  call  itself,  will 
be  listened  to,  unless  in  these  matters  it  can  give  a 
sane  and  courageous  lead. 

We  have,  in  previous  chapters,  been  dealing  with 
certain  aspects  of  this  question,  and  what  has  al- 
ready been  said  leads  up  naturally  to  the  theme  now 
before  us,  that  of  the  ethics  of  property.  There  is 
evidently  a  great  deal  of  fog  abroad  on  the  whole 
theme,  and  it  is  desirable  to  get,  if  we  can,  some 
straight  thinking  about  it. 

Let  us  ask  then,  at  the  beginning,  Avhat  we  mean  by 
property,  by  owning  a  thing.  How  do  we  come  to 
say,  "  This  is  mine  "  ;  by  what  right  do  we  say  it, 
and  how  far  does  our  right  go  ?  By  our  property  in 
a  thing,  speaking  generally,  we  understand  our 
liberty  to  use  it.  The  extent  of  our  ownership  is 
the  extent  of  our  power  to  use.  If  some  one 
bequeathed  me  the  moon,  I  should  be  no  better  off, 
because  I  could  do  nothing  with  it.  Its  interior 
might  be  of  gold  or  diamond,  but  I  am  no  richer, 
because  it  is  out  of  reach.  And  if  the  power  to  use 
a  thing  constitutes  the  essence  of  property,  it  is  the 
actual  use  which  confers  much  of  the  right  to  it. 
In  the  most  primitive  conditions  of  society,  the 
savage  who  has  worked  at  his  felled  tree  and  shaped 
it  into  a  canoe  is  regarded  by  himself  and  his  neigh- 
bour as  having  a  right  in  it  which  does  not  belong  to 
another.     Priority  of  possession,  which  is  held  by 


THE  ETHICS  OF  OWNERSHIP         145 

sociologists  as  constituting  the  original  basis  of 
ownership,  is  also  mixed  up  with  this  idea  of  use. 
The  man  who  found  the  cave  first  has  the  prior  claim 
over  the  one  who  comes  later,  for  one  thing  because 
he  is  already  there,  and  for  another  because  he  has 
been  making  various  uses  of  the  shelter. 

And  it  is  this  idea  of  use  that  constitutes  the 
right  to  permanence  in  property.  It  was  early 
realised  that  a  man  could  not  work  successfully 
unless  he  was  secured  in  the  possession  of  his  tools. 
There  could  not,  in  agriculture,  be  any  profitable 
use  of  the  land  unless  the  sower  of  the  seed  could 
be  sure  of  possession  till  the  harvest.  But  use,  as 
essential  to  the  idea  of  property,  goes  a  great  deal 
further  than  that.  We  ask  sometimes,  "  How  much 
does  a  man  own  ?  "  But  concerning  what  he  owns 
there  is  another  question  :  "  How  much  does  he 
own  it  ?  "  And  the  answer  depends  again  on  use. 
The  differences  here  are  enormous  and  vital. 
The  Red  Indians,  who  for  ages  wandered  over  the 
American  continent,  owned  it,  in  a  fashion.  But 
the  white  man,  who  succeeded,  has  owned  it  in 
another.  After  centuries  of  occupation  the  Indian 
was  as  poor  as  when  he  began.  His  successor,  by 
superior  uses  of  what  he  held,  has  made  himself 
boundlessly  rich.  He  owns  America  more  than  the 
savage  did,  more  by  all  his  mind,  by  all  his  faculty 
of  apprehension  and  appropriation. 

There  are,  indeed,  all  varieties  and  intensities  of 
owning.  When  the  poet  says  to  Dives,  "  The  land 
is  yours,  the  landscape  is  mine,"  he  suggests  two 
most  absolute  forms  of  possession,  though  we  have 
no  scale  for  determining  the  two  values.     A  nouveau 

10 


146  OUR  CITY  OF  G01> 

riche  may  own  a  Plato,  gorgeously  bound,  which  he 
has  never  opened.  How  different  his  ownership  of 
the  volumes  from  that  of  a  Porson  or  a  Jowett ! 
It  is,  indeed,  when  we  consider  property  under  this 
master-idea  of  use  that  we  see  how  men  of  small 
incomes  are  often  wealthier  than  millionaires.  It 
is  the  man  who  is  making  most  and  best  use  of  the 
world  he  lives  in  who  has  the  greatest  property  in 
it.  It  was  the  sense  of  this  which  led  Faraday,  on 
his  £300  a  year  at  the  Royal  Institution,  to  refuse 
offer  after  offer  of  wealth  which  would  have  led 
him  away  from  research  ;  and  which  made  D'Alem- 
bert  turn  from  the  glittering  bribes  of  Frederick  the 
Great  and  the  Empress  Catherine,  preferring,  as  he 
said,  "  poverty  with  freedom."  These  men  with 
superb  faculties  for  using  the  Universe,  were  deter- 
mined at  all  costs  to  be  able  to  use  it  their  own  way. 
That  was  their  notion  of  property  in  it. 

But  aU  this  is  preliminary  to  our  main  question, 
the  question  which  Sociahsm  is  everywhere  pushing 
to  the  front,  between  collective  and  private  owner- 
ship. The  new  contention  is  that  private  ownership 
is  wrong  ;  that  the  State,  the  community,  should 
be  owner,  as  the  only  way  of  securing  justice  to  the 
individual.  Let  us  examine  this  a  little.  In  order 
to  get  dayUght  upon  it  we  must  come  to  first  principles. 
Nature  is  here  our  prime  instructor.  What  does  she 
teach  ?  Her  very  first  lesson  is  on  the  inseparable 
union  between  these  two  apparent  opposites. 
"  Collective,"  "  Private  "  ?  She  insists  upon  both, 
and  will  allow  you  no  property  in  which  the  two 
principles  are  not  conjoined.  Joint  ownership, 
for  instance,  however  extended,  leaves  you  in  the 


THE  ETHICS  OF  OWNERSHIP         147 

end  a  private  owner,  for  your  share  in  profits  is  yours 
and  not  anothers.  On  the  other  hand  private 
ownership  is  always  in  the  end  a  collective  affair. 
The  family  relationship,  which  is  older  than  political 
economy,  makes  sure  of  that.  The  head  of  the 
house,  who  receives  the  income,  never  receives  it  for 
himself  alone.  As  he  looks  round  on  his  family  he 
cannot  say  of  his  receipts  "  they  are  mine  "  ;  only 
*'  they  are  ours."  And  supposing  this  "  owner  " 
stands  alone,  without  family  or  any  directly  depen- 
dent on  him,  the  collectivism  of  his  ownership  still 
comes  in.  For  in  his  utmost  isolation  he  owns  simply 
as  a  tenant  of  society.  It  is  by  the  will  and  tacit 
agreement  of  the  community  he  keeps  possession 
of  what  he  has.  Apart  from  this  tacit  social  partner- 
ship he  could  keep  nothing. 

We  can  go  even  deeper  than  this  and  still  find 
the  same  principle.  If  there  be  one  thing  which 
amid  all  possible  economic  revolutions  we  can  still 
call  our  very  own  it  would  surely  be  our  separate 
personality.  What  men  cannot  rob  us  of  is  the 
treasure  of  our  own  thoughts,  of  our  own  soul.  Yes, 
but  even  here  we  perceive  in  full  operation  the  system 
of  dual  ownership.  We  do  not  even  know  our- 
selves except  in  relation  to  the  "  not  ourself."  We 
can  only  perceive,  can  only  think,  when  in  partner- 
ship with  something  outside.  Going  even  deeper 
still,  we  find  our  individual  consciousness  derives 
its  life  and  its  vahdity  from  being  grounded  upon  a 
universal  consciousness,  of  which  it  and  every  other 
individual  mind  ahke  partakes.  The  ownership 
of  our  own  souls  is  clearly  a  partnership. 

Here,  then,  with  the  nature  of  things  for  our 


148  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

guide,  we  have  surely  a  sufficiently  clear  lead  on  the 
question  before  us.  Collectivism  and  individualism 
in  ownership  are  not,  as  some  suppose,  clashing 
opposites.  Nature  declares  for  both,  insists  on  both, 
in  all  her  combinations  makes  use  of  both.  The 
social  readjustment  will  have  to  follow  this  order.  It 
has,  indeed,  done  so  up  to  a  certain  point.  What  is 
wanted  is  to  carry  the  principle  courageously  for- 
ward into  departments  where  as  yet  it  has  not  been 
sufficiently  recognised.  It  is,  for  instance,  as  we 
have  already  pointed  out,  already  accepted  in 
our  social  system,  that  private  ownership  must  be 
limited  by  the  over-ownership  of  the  State.  A  man 
owns,  uses  what  he  owns,  transmits  to  others  what 
he  owns,  simply  by  permission  of  the  community, 
as  expressed  in  its  laws  and  customs.  Where  his 
share  in  this  dual  ownership  seems  by  excess  to  be 
hurtful  to  others,  society  claims  the  power  to 
redress  the  balance.  It  would  not  allow  a  million- 
aire, whatever  millions  he  offered,  to  buy  the  square 
mile  of  land  round  the  Mansion  House  and  to  pull 
down  all  its  buildings.  A  single  example  hke  this  is 
sufficient  to  show  that  the  State,  the  community 
that  is,  not  only  theoretically  but  practically 
stands  as  the  one  supreme  landed  proprietor  ;  that 
private  ownership  in  land  is  already  a  delegated, 
leasehold  ownership,  limited  in  a  thousand  ways 
by  the  universal,  ultimate  owner. 

What  in  the  near  future  is  coming,  and  what  all 
earnest  reformers  have  now  diligently  to  strive  for 
is,  then,  the  proper  application  of  the  power  which 
the  community  already  possesses.  In  the  supreme 
question^of  the  land,   for  instance,   the  national 


THE  ETHICS  OF  OWNERSHIP         149 

proprietor  must7put  end  to  those  phases  of  private 
ownership  which  are  cripphng  industries  and  hinder- 
ing the  development  of  the  individual  citizen.  It 
must  stop  the  expulsion  of  men  in  order  to  make  deer 
forests.  It  must  abolish  the  monopoly  of  pro- 
prietorship and  shed  its  joys,  as  France  has  done, 
amongst  the  millions  of  the  population.  The  Eng- 
land of  to-day,  as  to  its  land  question,  is  in  exactly 
the  position  which  brought  about  the  ruin  of  ancient 
Rome,  where  the  expropriation  of  small  proprietors 
and  the  concentration  of  almost  the  entire  country 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  wealthy  patricians  divorced  the 
people  from  the  soil  and  drove  them  into  the  towns, 
to  lose  there  the  sturdy  physique  and  the  republican 
virtue  of  their  ancestors.  We  cannot  allow,  with  us, 
the  same  process  to  be  carried  to  the  same  end. 

The  community,  as  overlord,  must  also  limit 
other  forms  of  private  ownership  which  mitigate 
against  the  Commonweal.  The  public  conscience 
here  must  curb  the  aberrations  of  the  private  one. 
America,  France  and  England  are  already  in  sight  of 
immense  apphcations  of  this  principle.  The  death 
duties  already  existent  are  a  recognition  of  the 
power  of  the  State  to  control  private  accumulations 
and  to  divert  their  transmission.  Unearned  incre- 
ments which  now  pour  into  private  pockets,  though 
they  are  created  entirely  by  the  labours  of  the 
community,  will  be  diverted  to  the  uses  of  that 
community.  The  sums  thus  reabsorbed  from  com- 
merce and  industry  by  the  State  as  chief  owner  will 
be  used  to  bridge  the  gulf  between  our  abject 
poverty  on  the  one  hand  and  our  bloated  luxury  on 
the  other.     The  community  is  rich  enough  to  give  all 


150  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

its  constituents  a  chance.  It  will  do  so  by  its  care- 
fully-considered and  gradual  redistributions.  Said 
Diderot  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  "  The  net  profit 
of  a  society,  if  equally  distributed,  may  be  prefer- 
able to  a  larger  profit,  if  it  be  distributed  unequally, 
and  have  the  effect  of  dividing  the  people  into  two 
classes,  one  gorged  with  riches,  the  other  perishing 
in  misery."  France  has  since  gone  a  long  way 
towards  realising  that  programme,  and  will  go 
further.  Western  civihsation  as  a  whole  is,  in 
fact,  to-day  in  full  sight  of  the  principle  that  the 
prosperity  of  the  community  is  contained  in  the 
prosperity  of  the  individual,  and  that  the  idea  of  pro- 
perty, as  of  every  other  private  right,  must  be 
brought  into  full  subordination  to  this  common 
end. 

Let  us  sum  up  our  conclusions.  There  is  inherent 
in  the  nature  of  things  the  two  principles  of  private 
and  of  pubhc  ownership.  The  task  of  the  modern 
State  is  so  to  regulate  these  two  as  to  secure  the 
highest  weKare  of  the  individual  and  of  the  com- 
munity. In  this  evolution  the  Churches,  if  they  are 
to  remain  as  conservators  of  man's  spiritual  heritage 
and  as  foremost  agents  of  the  Divine  Kingdom,  must 
take  an  immediate  and  a  foremost  part. 


XVI 
The  Gospel   of  Work 

The  world  is  to-day  asking  a  thousand  questions 
about  labour.  The  questions  are  not  new  ;  but 
they  are  more  insistent  than  of  old,  and,  what  is  of 
chief  importance,  they  seem  nearer  now  than  ever 
before  to  their  solution.  Fifty  years  ago  Carlyle 
preached  his  gospel  of  work.  Two  men,  he  said, 
were  worthy  of  respect  in  this  world — the  man  who 
toiled  with  his  hands  and  that  other  who  wrought 
with  sweat  of  brain.  The  rest  were  chaff  and 
rubbish.  An  excellent  doctrine  truly,  but  whether 
our  generation  as  a  whole  has  been  converted  to  it 
is  more  than  doubtful.  The  signs  are,  indeed,  of  a 
retreat  rather  than  an  advance  in  this  matter,  from 
the  ideals  of  our  fathers.  The  numbers  grow  of 
those  who  are  "  born  tired,"  who  do  not  propose 
to  work  if  they  can  help  it.  Then  there  is  the 
modern  revolt  of  labour  against  its  conditions,  its 
status,  its  rewards.  If  we  are  solidly  to  found 
our  "  City  of  God,"  we  must  reach  first  some  sound 
conclusions  on  this  vital  point. 

Amid  vast  confusions  and  divergencies  of  view 
one  thing  emerges  into  clear  certainty,  and  we 
may   begin  with   that.     This   sure   thing   is   that 

151 


152  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

man,  placed  here  in  his  world,  was  intended  to 
work  in  it.  Nature  has  fixed  him  to  that  by  two 
compulsions,  an  outer  and  an  inner.  The  first  is 
the  very  simple  and  effective  law  that  if  he  does  not 
work  he  shall  not  eat.  To  ensure  our  keeping  to  the 
line  we  are  put  on  a  system  of  short  rations.  It  is 
the  greatest  of  fallacies  to  talk  of  the  world's  accumu- 
lated wealth.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  all  live  from 
hand  to  mouth.  A  three  weeks'  universal  strike 
would  bring  the  world  to  starvation  point.  Sup- 
posing we  were  all  made  millionaires  to-morrow,  we 
should  have  to  go  on  working  just  the  same.  We 
should  still  want  bread  to  eat,  clothes  to  wear, 
houses  to  shelter  us,  fires  to  warm  us.  And  so 
our  milUonaire  farmers,  tailors,  builders  and  colhers 
would  find  their  daily  task  indispensable  to  them- 
selves and  to  society.  All  our  property  is  perish- 
able, most  of  it  quickly  perishable,  and  nothing  but  a 
constant  forthput  of  energy  will  keep  us  going. 
Like  Father  Adam,  we  occupy  our  garden  on  condi- 
tion of  keeping  it  in  order. 

The  other  or  inner  compulsion  is  not  less  clear 
and  imperative.  It  is  ordained  in  the  system  of 
things  that  man  can  only  preserve  health  of  body  and 
mind  by  labour.  Unemployed  human  nature  is 
Uke  stagnant  water,  becoming  quickly  muddy  and 
foul,  a  breeder  of  worms  and  corruption.  It  is  by 
constant  exercise  that  our  faculties  exhibit  their 
possibilities  and  augment  their  powers.  We  only 
know  ourselves,  reach  ourselves,  by  energising. 
There  is  no  abiding  happiness  away  from  effort.  It 
is  this  which  makes  it  so  foolish  for  men  to  retire 
from  work  simply  because  they  have  accumulated 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  WORK  153 

money.  What  is  it  they  are  proposing  to  retire 
from,  themselves,  or  from  the  law  of  nature  ?  These 
demand  from  us  that,  each  day,  we  shall  press  from 
the  hours  the  hid  treasure  our  powers  can  evoke. 
That  pathetic  hne  which  Lamb,  after  his  retirement 
from  the  Indian  Office,  wrote  to  his  friend  Bernard 
Barton  contains  all  the  truth  of  the  matter  :  "I 
pity  you  for  overwork  ;  but  I  assure  you  no  work 
is  worse.  The  mind  preys  on  itself — the  most 
unwholesome  food."  The  problem  of  our  un- 
employed to-day,  the  necessity  of  setting  them  to 
work  somehow,  is  not  so  much  a  problem  of  pro- 
duction, of  the  relatively  good  or  bad  quality  of 
what  they  may  produce.  The  problem  is  that  of 
their  own  nature,  of  the  wrack  and  ruin  that  is  going 
on  there,  so  long  as  hands  and  heads  are  unoccupied  ; 
of  the  poison  their  character  and  habits  will  exhale 
so  long  as  by  idleness  they  are  kept  out  of  the  con- 
ditions essential  to  moral  health.  And  at  the 
other  end  of  the  social  scale  the  cry  against  the 
idle  rich,  where  it  is  a  sane  cry,  is  not  against  their 
wealth  in  itself  but  against  a  mental  habitude  fatal 
to  their  own  best  interests  and  those  of  the  com- 
munity. 

With  this  as  a  beginning,  let  us  look  now  at  some 
of  the  more  insistent  labour  questions  of  our  time. 
The  great  modern  revolt  is  not  against  labour  so 
much  as  against  certain  kinds  of  labour.  Men  want 
to  pick  their  work.  They  see  in  operation  a  caste 
system  here  as  rigorous  as  that  of  Hinduism.  It 
is  a  very  old  system.  Plato  in  Athens  and  Cicero 
in  Rome  alike  express  their  contempt  for  handi- 
crafts.    They  are  fit  for  slaves.     To-day  the  root 


154  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

difficulty  in  South  Africa,  a  difficulty  which  promises 
to  hinder  permanently  the  progress  of  the  sub- 
continent, is  the  refusal  of  the  white  man  to  do 
manual  work.  He  leaves  it  to  the  black.  To  soil 
his  hands  would  be,  he  thinks,  to  degrade  himself 
and  to  lose  prestige.  There  will  be  neither  peace 
nor  prosperity  till  that  fatal  notion  has  been  extir- 
pated. And  it  is  all  so  purely  a  fashion,  an  artificial 
fashion,  in  thinking  !  At  Eton  in  the  old  days  the 
fag — who  might  be  the  son  of  a  duke — would 
make  the  fire  for  his  senior,  fry  the  sausages  for  his 
breakfast,  run  his  errands,  and  on  occasion  black 
his  boots,  and  that  without  the  sHghtest  injury  to  his 
rank  or  self-respect.  And  the  aristocrat  of  to-day, 
on  a  big-game  expedition,  would  do  all  this  if 
occasion  required  with  perfect  gusto.  We  have 
only  to  spread  this  feeling  and  half  the  problem  is 
solved.  The  body  cries  out  for  work  just  as  much 
as  the  mind,  the  body  of  the  millionaire  as  much  as 
the  body  of  the  pauper.  We  have  only  to  proclaim 
it  dignified  and  it  is  so.  What  a  new  day  for  South 
Africa  when  the  white  man  has  become  willing 
to  show  the  native  that  superiority  consists  not  so 
much  in  scorning  to  do  work  as  in  doing  it  well ! 

But  while  this  is  true  it  is  not  the  less  certain 
that  the  human  movement  is  all  in  direction  of 
substituting  higher  for  lower  forms  of  work.  Manual 
labour,  we  have  said,  is  both  healthful  and  honour- 
able, but  it  may  be  excessive.  The  tendency  is  to 
reduce  it,  to  bring  it  into  bounds,  so  that  man  may  be 
easily  master  of  his  toil  instead  of  being  mastered 
by  it.  He  is  becoming  more  and  more  a  director 
rather  than  a  forth-putter  of  energy.     Outside  the 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  WOEK  155 

force  stored  in  his  muscles  he  discovers  there  is 
another  force,  of  the  same  kind  but  measureless  in 
quality,  which  waits  to  be  employed.  It  is  the 
force  of  the  universe,  the  force  of  gravitation,  of 
heat,  of  electricity,  of  winds  and  waves.  Here  is  a 
servant  who  never  tires,  who  never  grumbles,  who 
demands  no  wages,  who  asks  only  to  have  its  ways 
understood,  who  discloses  at  every  turn  new  and 
marvellous  resources.  With  this  spring  of  eternal 
energy  behind  there  seems  no  end  to  the  human 
possibilities.  We  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  the 
harnessing  process.  The  powers  as  yet  unused  are 
enough  of  themselves  to  start  the  millennium.  There 
is  force  sufficient  in  the  tides  alone  to  do  all  man's 
muscle  work  could  he  but  hit  on  the  way  of  using 
them.  Enough  has  been  done  already  to  change 
all  the  conditions  of  labour.  Our  generation  has 
seen  the  transformation  of  agriculture.  The 
"  labourer  "  is  a  watcher  more  than  a  labourer. 
He  sees  the  machine  do  the  reaping,  the  haymaking, 
the  lifting,  the  threshing  that  were  done  aforetime 
by  the  swing  of  his  own  arms.  And  it  is  the  same 
everywhere  else.  At  the  St.  Gothard  it  was  the 
diamond  drill  and  the  dynamite  blast  that  pierced 
the  mountain.  On  sea  and  on  land  our  workers 
are  steam  and  steel  rather  than  nerve  and  muscle. 

But  here  emerges  the  question  that  stirs  to  rage 
the  proletariat  and  that  confounds  the  reformer  : 
"  Why  is  it  that  the  revolution  accomplished  by 
machinery  has  done  so  Uttle  for  the  worker  him- 
self ?  Why  is  it  that  with  the  magnificent  victories 
achieved  for  the  race  by  modern  science — that  with 
all  our  splendid  progress — the  condition  of  masses 


156  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

of  the  people  remains  so  hopeless  ?  Why  is  it  that  the 
intensity  of  the  light  in  one  direction  is  counter- 
balanced, as  though  automatically,  by  the  depth  of 
the  shadow  in  another  ?  "  Here,  indeed,  is  our 
sphinx-riddle,  which  we  have  to  solve  or  perish. 

We  are  ceasing  to  be  satisfied  with  the  stock 
answers    offered    by   the    political   economy    of    a 
generation  ago.     There  is,  for  instance,  the  amaz- 
ing argument  of  Malthus,  the  more  amazing  that  it 
has  imposed  on  so  many  and  such  able  men,   that 
population,  by  its  law  of  increase,  is  bound  to  over- 
pass the  means  of  subsistence  and  to  reduce,  con- 
sequently, the  lowest  class  to  starvation  point.     How 
utterly  false  is  this  calculation  is  now  evident  to 
every  student,  and  yet  it  was  accepted  by  Mill. 
It  was  about  as  reasonable  as  the  argument  that 
because  a  child  doubles  its  weight  in  the  first  year, 
it  will  go  on  doubling  its  weight  every  year.     The 
human  race  does  not  increase  in  any  such  ratio  as 
was   alleged.     Moreover,   it   is   not   the   size   of   a 
population  which   brings   it  into   poverty.     Quite 
otherwise.     It  was  in  1727,  when  the  population  of 
Ireland  was  only  two  millions,  that  the  terrible  want 
and   suffering   made  Dean  Swift  utter  his  bitter 
suggestion  about  roasting  babies  as  the  only  famine 
remedy.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  seen  in  new  countries, 
such  as  the  United  States  and  Canada,  that  it  is 
not  the  increase  of  food  that  brings  the  increase  of 
men,  but  the  increase  of  men  that  brings  the  increase 
of  food.     Under  proper  conditions  man  can  develop 
food  resources  far  faster  than  he  can  use  them. 
And  the  balance  on  his  side  in  this  matter  tends^to 
increase  rather  than  diminish. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  WORK  157 

What,  then,  is  the  matter  with  us  ?  Why  the 
existing  want  and  discontent  ?  Why,  at  one  end, 
workers  without  work,  or  without  the  due  rewards 
of  work,  with,  at  the  other,  a  swollen  luxury  and 
extravagance  that  are  not  less  a  curse  ?  An  answer 
which  created  a  great  sensation  when  it  appeared, 
and  which  still  justly  commands  attention,  was 
that  given  by  Henry  George  in  his  "  Progress  and 
Poverty,"  where  he  traced  all  our  present  evils  to 
absolute  ownership  in  land,  and  found  a  universal 
remedy  in  the  abolition  of  that  ownership.  No  one 
can  read  that  book  without  being  impressed  with 
its  lofty  purpose,  its  array  of  facts,  its  solemn  and 
prophetic  earnestness.  But  it  is  not  conclusive. 
The  gaze  of  our  reformer  was  directed  so  entirely  to 
one  point  as  to  leave  out  essential  features  of  the 
question  and  to  distort  his  view  of  some  things 
within  his  field  of  vision.  His  laboured  contention 
that  wages  are  paid  out  of  labour  rather  than  out  of 
capital  amounts  really  to  nothing,  since,  according 
to  his  own  showing,  capital  is  simply  accumulated 
labour.  His  argument,  too,  that  increase  of  pro- 
ductive power  tends  always  to  the  increase  of  rents 
and  to  the  lowering  of  wages  is  disproved  by  the  facts. 
If,  as  he  says,  high  wages  mean  low  rents  and  vice 
versa,  we  should  have  the  lowest  wages  in  London, 
where  city  rents  are  enormous,  and  the  highest 
wages  in  the  country,  where  rents  are  lower  and 
lower.  The  reverse,  we  know,  is  the  case.  Were 
landowners  the  absorbents  of  all  the  increase  of 
production  and  possessed  of  the  omnipotence  he 
speaks  of  as  theirs,  we  should  have  the  spectacle  of 
everyone  possessing  capital  rushing  to  invest  it  in 


158  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

this  wondrous  commodity.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
people  are  to-day  putting  their  money  into  any- 
thing rather  than  land. 

Moreover  the  dragon  of  absolute  private  ownership 
in  land  against  which  Mr.  George  fights  is  a  chimera. 
There  has  never  been  such  a  thing.  In  every  form 
of  government,  ancient  or  modern,  the  State  has 
been  recognised  as  ultimate  owner.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  the  feudal  tenure,  with  its  claim  of  mihtary 
service  for  the  broad  acres  bestowed,  was  the  fullest 
recognition  of  this  fact.  In  the  State  of  to-day 
that  the  community  is  final  owner  is  evidenced  by 
the  power  it  claims  of  making  land  laws.  It  claims 
to  give  its  own  meaning  to  the  term  "  owner," 
putting  just  as  much  or  as  little  power  into  the  word 
as  it  deems  good  for  the  individual  and  the  State. 
That  the  mere  holding  of  land  by  the  community, 
which  is  our  reformer's  panacea,  does  not  contain  all 
the  beneficial  potency  he  imagines  is  shown  amply 
enough,  one  would  think,  by  the  history  of  common 
ownership  as  seen  in  Russia,  amongst  the  Indian 
tribes,  and  in  other  primitive  communities. 

The  land  question  is  a  potent  factor  in  the  problem, 
but  assuredly  not  the  only  one.  It  is  not  a  land 
question  which  has  produced  the  state  of  things  at 
Chicago  described  in  "  The  Jungle."  What  we  see 
there  is  a  mass  of  helpless  people,  Poles,  Lithuanians, 
Sclavs,  who,  ignorant  of  the  country  they  have  come 
to,  of  its  language,  its  laws,  its  customs,  and  driven 
by  their  daily  necessity,  are  forced  into  the  wealth- 
making  machine,  worked  there  to  their  utmost 
strength,  and  then,  when  energy  fails,  flung  aside 
to  make  way  for  new-comers,  hapless  as  themselves. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  WORK  159 

What  is  needed  here,  as  all  over  the  world,  is  plainly 
more  than  a  settlement  of  land  rents.  The  essential 
thing  is  the  realisation  by  the  State — the  organised 
community,  that  is — of  its  supreme  power,  not  only 
over  land  but  over  all  other  species  of  property,  and 
of  the  intervention  of  the  State  to  prevent  the 
exploitation  of  the  poor  by  unscrupulous  private 
greed.  Not  until  the  State  has  asserted  its  supreme 
power  ;  not  until  the  public  conscience,  guided  by 
its  best  intellect,  has  transformed  the  idea  of  owner- 
ship, making  it  a  trust  subject  to  the  interests  of  all, 
will  humanity's  day  of  deliverance  have  dawned. 


XVII 
Our  Debt  to  Life 

In  preceding  chapters  we  have  been  discussing  the 
forms  of  social  improvement  that  are  concerned 
with  its  external  side.  We  cannot  easily  exaggerate 
the  importance  of  that  side.  Property,  ownership, 
labour  and  capital,  the  relation  of  the  State  to  the 
individual — these  are  matters  which  affect  us  all  at 
every  point  and  at  every  moment.  In  this  sense  we 
may  say  with  a  French  statesman,  "  Politics  are  our 
blood,  our  money,  and  our  happiness."  Thespirit- 
uahty  which  ignores  this  realm,  which  remains 
ignorant  of  its  laws  and  forces,  is  a  false  spirituaUty. 
The  Kingdom  of  God  amongst  men  is  a  kingdom 
which  comprehends  everything  about  men.  While 
all  this  is  true  it  is  not  the  less  certain  that  political 
and  social  readjustments  are  the  vainest  of  imagina- 
tions if  regarded  as  the  only  or  chief  factors  of  the 
human  problem.  Let  us  by  all  means  try  to  get 
this  part  of  our  sum  right.  Bad  calculation  here, 
we  recognise,  muddles  the  entire  equation.  But 
our  figuring  on  these  Hnes  is  only  the  begimiing  of 
our  bookkeeping.  The  greatest  factor  has  yet  to 
come  in.  Behind  pohtical  economy  comes  character. 
Before  we  talk  of  Socialisms  we  must  talk  about  the 

160 


OUR  DEBT  TO  LIFE  161 

Socialist.  The  State  cannot  make  the  individual. 
It  is  the  individual  who  makes  the  State.  And  so 
we  come  back  to  the  truth  which  Socrates  taught 
over  two  thousand  years  ago,  and  on  which  Chris- 
tianity has  always  insisted,  that  the  true  politics 
is  first  of  all  a  politics  of  the  soul,  that  all  outer 
conditions  depend  finally  on  the  inner  conditions 
there. 

The  supreme  want  of  our  time  is  a  spiritual 
teaching  which,  addressed  with  fearless  impartiality 
to  our  upper,  our  middle,  and  our  working  classes, 
shall,  with  irrefutable  argument  and  irresistible 
appeal,  urge  them  to  inner  improvement  as  the 
indispensable  accompaniment  of  any  external 
advance.  This  teaching  must  be  adapted  to  the 
new  thought-conditions.  It  must,  above  all,  be  a 
teaching  that  shall  capture  the  imagination  of  the 
young.  One  of  the  leading  features  of  it  should  be 
the  creation  in  their  minds  of  an  intense  sense  of 
social  obHgation.  They  should  be  taught  to  realise, 
as  their  great  initial  lesson,  their  debt  to  h'fe.  This, 
indeed,  is  the  old  evangehc  doctrine  of  grace,  pre- 
sented in  the  form  which  the  new  generation  can 
understand  and  appreciate.  Put  in  the  old  thec- 
logic  phraseology  it  would  be  to  multitudes  repugnant 
and  meaningless.  But  there  is  a  way  of  putting  it 
which  will  make  it  plain  enough  and  impressive 
enough  to  every  youth  and  maiden  of  common 
understanding. 

The  doctrine  to  be  taught,  we  say,  is  a  doctrine  of 
grace,  and  of  a  commensurate  indebtedness.  There 
is  a  huge  account  against  us,  which,  if  we  possess  a 
spark  of  honour,  we  shall  want,  as  far  as  we  can,  to 

11 


162  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

repay.  We  are  where  we  are  and  what  we  are 
because  of  boundless  benefactions  bestowed  upon 
us  by  invisible  donors,  because  of  measureless 
service  rendered  us  by  invisible  helpers.  It  would 
be  the  deathblow,  one  would  think,  both  of  cynic- 
ism and  of  pessimism,  if  people,  instead  of  accepting 
what  they  possess  to-day  as  a  thing  of  course,  would 
take  the  trouble  to  trace  the  process  by  which 
it  has  come  to  be  theirs.  We  should  see  then,  if  we 
never  saw  it  before,  that  a  Cross  is  signed  upon  all 
things,  that  we  live  by  a  system  of  vicarious  sacrifice. 
To  begin  close  at  hand,  what  a  gospel,  if  only  we 
would  Hsten  to  it,  is  preached  us  by  our  breakfast- 
table  !  Almost  everything  there — the  tea,  the 
coffee,  the  bread,  the  sugar,  the  condiments — has 
come  to  us  from  overseas.  For  these  things  to  reach 
us  it  required  that  a  host  of  those  bravest,  simplest, 
and  most  enduring  of  our  fellow-men,  the  merchant 
sailors,  should  watch  and  toil  by  day  and  night  in 
hardest  conditions,  amid  fogs  and  tempests,  with 
smallest  spiritual  aid,  with  smallest  chance  of 
morality.  How  little  we  think  of  all  that !  How 
little  is  there  in  us  of  the  mind  of  Quaker  John 
Woolman,  who,  in  his  first  voyage  across  the 
Atlantic,  determined,  well-to-do  citizen  that  he 
was,  to  company  with  the  sailors  in  the  forecastle, 
to  share  their  Ufe,  that  he  might  know  at  first- 
hand how  they  fared,  and  that  also  he  might 
minister  to  them  of  his  inner  treasure !  We, 
unregenerate  that  we  are,  take  all  from  them 
without  any  feehng  of  the  debt. 

To  come  from  visibles  to  invisibles,  think  of  our 
present  freedoms  and  how  they  have  reached  us  ! 


OUR  DEBT  TO  LIFE  163 

We  accept  our  liberty  of  speech  and  of  action  as  a 
matter  of  course.  One  might  suppose  it  was  in  the 
nature  of  things,  as  sunlight  and  fresh  air.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  was  won  for  us  by  godhke  heroism, 
by  agony  and  bloody  sweat.  It  came  because  men 
dared  to  say  the  thing  they  held  to  be  true,  though 
they  saw  the  torture  chamber  and  the  scaffold  as 
the  certain  result.  We  think  of  Bruno  burning  at 
the  stake,  of  his  fellow-countryman,  Carnesecchi, 
tortured  and  executed,  for  saying  his  say  in  the 
face  of  Rome.  Can  you  count  it  out  in  gold,  or 
other  value,  my  brother  Protestant,  what  you  and  I 
owe  to  our  own  Ridley  and  Latimer,  enduring  the 
smoke  and  flame  of  that  Oxford  pyre  ?  Think  of 
Sebastian  Franck  giving  up  his  easy  ecclesiastical 
post  and  becoming  a  working  soap-boiler  at  Erlangen 
in  order  that,  with  a  free  soul,  he  might  testify 
against  a  religion  of  corruption  and  superstition, 
and  for  one  that  was  inward,  vital,  and  spiritual ! 
What  number  of  shekels  or  other  coin  will  represent 
the  obHgation  which  Free  Churchmen  are  under  to 
"  that  obscure  Baptist  congregation  "  of  the  early 
seventeenth  century,  of  whom  David  Masson 
writes  :  "It  seems  to  have  become  the  depository 
for  all  England  of  the  absolute  principle  of  liberty 
of  conscience.  ...  It  was,  in  short,  from  this 
little  dingy  meeting-house  somewhere  in  old  London 
that  there  flashed  out  first  in  England  the  absolute 
doctrine  of  rehgious  liberty."  Free  Churchmen 
meet  peaceably  for  their  worship  to-day  because 
their  forefathers  were  not  afraid  to  brave  the 
possibility  of  having  their  gatherings  broken  up 
with  pistol-shots  and  themselves  haled  to  prison. 


164  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

Not  only  our  religious  liberty  but  our  religion  itself 
is  all  a  debt.  We  are  here  ministered  to  daily  by 
invisible,  unpaid  helpers.  From  what  distances, 
through  what  processes,  does  our  inner  sustenance 
reach  us  day  by  day  !  In  Glasgow  the  maidservant 
who  turns  on  the  tap  in  the  kitchen  draws  water 
which  has  flowed  into  the  grimy  city  from  Loch 
Katrine,  that  far-ofif  lovely  lake  set  in  its  circle  of 
mighty  hills.  And  when,  before  the  turmoil  of  the 
day,  in  our  secret  place,  we  open  on  a  book  of  devo- 
tion, and  taste  there  some  Uving  word — it  may  be  a 
passage  from  Augustine,  or  a  page  of  the  "  Imitation," 
or  the  message  of  prophet  or  apostle — is  it  not  here 
again  a  matter  of  murky  city  and  the  highland 
springs  ?  Only  the  matter  goes  deeper.  Glasgow 
pays  for  its  water.  But  as  we  taste  our  draught 
of  inner  refreshment  what  have  we  to  offer  in  return 
to  those  far-off  souls  who,  centuries  ago,  climbed 
the  hills  of  God,  who,  high  up  there,  struck  the 
rock  and  caused  to  flow  down  upon  us  the  hving 
stream  that  we  here  drink  of  ? 

There  seems  only  one  appropriate  answer  to  all 
this.  Our  past  is  a  huge  debt.  The  great  spirits 
that  have  toiled  and  suffered  for  our  enlargement 
seem  from  their  height  to  contemplate  us,  waiting 
for  our  response.  Behind  them  is  a  greater  appeal 
still.  It  is  that  contained  in  the  entire  life  process. 
We  are  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages.  For  us  through 
immeasurable  aeons  Nature  has  carried  on  her  patient 
work — upward,  ever  upward,  from  the  unconscious 
to  the  conscious,  from  rock  to  plant,  from  plant  to 
animal,  from  mollusc  to  man.  And  to-day  her  cry 
is  still  onward.     She  is  adding  to-day  to  the  human 


OUR  DEBT  TO  LIFE  165 

soul.  The  Divine  inspiration  known  to  prophet  and 
evangehst  is  a  fact  of  the  present  hour.  The  human 
consciousness-  is  aware  of  a  constant  secret  inflow 
from  its  upper  side.  It  knows  a  Power  that  helps, 
that  inspires,  that  will  not  let  us  go.  It  is  as  if  a 
millionaire  had  invested  his  capital  in  us,  had  trusted 
us  with  his  utmost  wealth,  and  was  looking  patiently 
for  a  return. 

All  this,  we  say,  leaves  room  for  but  one  reply. 
Let  the  account  be  properly  presented  to  the  youth 
of  our  day  and  they  will  draw  the  inference  them- 
selves. Generous  natures,  as  they  come  thoroughly 
to  understand  under  what  conditions,  and  at  whose 
charges,  they  find  themselves  seated  at  the  banquet 
of  life,  will  feel  the  stir  within  them  of  a  new  mighty 
impulse.  It  will  be  too  intolerable  for  them,  a 
poltroonery  not  to  be  endured,  to  partake  of  this 
feast  and  to  offer  nothing  in  return.  But  their 
debt  to  the  past,  they  will  see,  cannot  be  paid  to 
the  past.  It  can  be  paid  only  to  the  future.  The 
boons  they  have  received  are  to  be  passed  on — with 
an  increment  supplied  by  themselves. 

The  other  point  here  to  be  considered  is  the  form 
which  this  offering  shall  take.  And  here  the  main 
thing  to  be  taught  is  that  being  comes  before  doing, 
that  the  quahty  of  service  depends  first  of  all  on  a 
quahty  of  nature.  "  Operari  sequitur  esse  " — "  do- 
ing follows  being,  is  according  to  being."  Nothing  is 
more  striking  in  the  world's  annals  than  the  sheer 
power  of  character,  as  in  itself  a  benefaction 
apart  from  the  special  activities  with  which  it  has 
been  connected.  It  reminds  one  of  the  description 
given  by  old  Thorpe    of  Wychffe.     "  Master  John 


166  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

Wycliffe  was  considered  by  many  to  be  the  most  holy 
of  all  the  men  in  his  age.  .  .  He  was  absolutely 
blameless  in  his  conduct.  Wherefore  very  many  of 
the  chief  men  of  this  kingdom  were  devotedly 
attached  to  him,  and  kept  a  record  of  what  he  said, 
and  guided  themselves  after  his  manner  of  Hfe." 
In  this  way  a  great  character  is,  by  its  sheer  quality 
of  being,  rendering  service  at  every  moment,  and 
for  the  most  part  unconsciously.  It  is  in  this 
respect  like  a  mountain  whose  fine  air  we  breathe, 
whose  beauty  and  far-reaching  prospects  we  enjoy, 
though  it  knows  us  not. 

It  is  this  consideration  above  all  others  that  those 
entrusted  with  the  spiritual  guidance  of  the  nation 
need  most  to  remember.  A  clergyman  of  the  old 
school  once  remarked  to  the  present  writer  that  he 
did  not  see  why  the  clergy  should  be  called  on  for  a 
higher  morality  than  the  laity.  "  Only,"  was  the 
reply  we  ventured,  "  that  the  laity  regard  morals  as 
"  the  clergyman's  business."  When  the  rehgious 
teacher  seeks  an  excuse  for  lowering  liis  own  standard, 
society  is  in  evil  case.  On  the  other  hand,  a  purified 
soul  acts  on  the  community  with  a  unique  power  of 
its  own.  Such  men  find  their  simplest  word  backed 
by  mysterious  forces  which  compel  the  minds  of 
men.  So  different  their  eloquence  from  that  of 
the  mere  rhetorician !  Goethe  understood  this. 
Says  Wagner  in  "  Faust  "  : 

ich  hab'  es  ofters  ruhmen  horen, 
Ein  Komodiant  konnt  einen  Pfarrer  lehren. 
Faust :    Ja,  wenn  der  Pfarrer  ein  Komodiant  ist. 

*'  I  have  often  heard,  it  said  that  the  actor  has 


OUR  DEBT  TO  LIFE  167 

much  to  teach  the  clergyman."     "  Yes,  when  the 
clergyman  is  just  an  actor." 

But  this  rule,  of  character  first  and  performance 
after,  applies  not  to  one  form  of  service  only.  It 
is  the  rule  in  all.  What  every  department  of  life 
is  calhng  for  to-day — commerce,  politics,  the  arts 
and  hterature — is  lofty  and  firmly-rooted  individual 
principle.  When  that  decays  we  are  lost.  As 
John  Morley  has  put  it  :  "  The  immediate  cause  of 
the  decline  of  a  society  in  order  of  morals  is  a 
dechne  in  the  quantity  of  its  conscience,  a  deaden- 
ing of  its  moral  sensitiveness."  But  how  is  this 
"  moral  sensitiveness  "  to  be  procured  and  sustained  ? 
It  is  on  this  question  that  every  scheme  for  running 
the  State  by  politics  only,  for  creating  its  well- 
being  by  mere  socialisms  and  property  redistribu- 
tions, splits  as  on  a  sunken  rock.  When  we  have 
reached  the  ultimate  here  we  find  we  are  only  at  the 
beginning.  The  healthy  State  is  made  up  of  good 
citizens.  There  is  no  other  way  of  producing  it. 
But  the  good  man,  the  good  citizen,  is  made  only  in 
one  way.  By  whatever  road  we  travel  in  these 
investigations,  we  come  round  to  the  same  truth  : 
*'  The  soul  of  all  improvement  is  the  improvement  of 
the  soul."  The  laws  of  the  spiritual  life  are  the  only 
laws  of  the  nation's  life.  Our  supreme  duty,  then, 
to  the  present  and  the  future  is  to  train  our  young 
to  the  full  sense,  first,  of  their  indebtedness  to  life, 
and,  second,  to  the  conviction  that  the  only  way  of 
discharging  it  is  by  being  and  doing  the  highest 
that  they  know. 


XVIII 
The  Doctrine   of   Limit 

The  idea  of  the  limit,  as  a  fundamental  principle 
both  of  life  and  of  thought,  was  a  favourite  and 
much-used  doctrine  of  Aristotle.  You  could  not 
have,  he  argues,  a  boat  of  either  an  inch  or  a  mile 
in  length.  At  both  ends,  of  smallness  and  of 
greatness,  the  being  and  the  uses  of  the  vessel 
demand  a  limit.  Starting  with  this,  he  carries 
the  principle  into  many  departments  of  affairs. 
It  crops  up  repeatedly  in  his  treatment  of  politics, 
of  philosophy  and  religion.  And  it  occurs  to  us 
that  in  manifold  questions  of  our  own  time,  affecting 
all  these  spheres,  this  Greek  idea  needs  to  be  re- 
membered. In  some  of  these  matters  we  have  been 
forgetting  it,  to  our  hurt.  The  applications  of  the 
doctrine  are  multitudinous,  and  we  can  only  select 
a  few.  We  may  begin  with  the  lower  and  more 
obvious  as  an  introduction  to  others  whose  reach 
is  further  towards  the  central  mysteries. 

Let  us  start  with  a  civic  question.  The  Greeks 
had  a  doctrine  of  the  city  or  community  which  is 
well  worth  our  consideration  just  now.  Believing 
that  man  was  essentially  "  a  poUtical  being,"  that 
his  Hfe  realised  itself  completely  only  in  the  social 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  LIMIT  169 

system,  they  held  that  this  realisation  demanded 
as  one  of  its  conditions  the  appUcation  of  their 
"  hmit  "  doctrine.  The  State,  which  to  them  was 
commonly  a  city,  must  be  of  a  certain  size.  Plato 
is  more  insistent  on  this  than  his  successor.  His 
ideal  republic  must  keep  itself  within  bounds,  both 
as  to  population  and  other  matters.  When  the 
numbers  reached  a  certain  point  there  must  be, 
as  with  bees,  a  swarming  off  and  the  founding  of  a 
new  colony.  The  idea  was  that  the  fellowship — 
for  the  State  was  a  fellowship — must  not  be  so 
large  as  to  prevent  the  supervision  and  management 
necessary  to  the  highest  communal  life.  This  view 
has  had  no  good  fortune  so  far,  Alexander  broke 
it  down  for  the  Greeks  by  the  creation  of  an  enormous 
empire,  an  example  in  which  he  was  speedily  fol- 
lowed by  the  Romans.  How  far  we  are  from  it 
to-day  is  too  evident.  Our  idea  of  greatness  is 
size.  Nations  compete  for  the  biggest  mileage  and 
the  hugest  population.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
cities.  London  boasts  her  six  millions,  and  New 
York  and  Chicago  strain  every  nerve  to  come  up 
with  her.  And  so  these  huge  amorphous  wens 
grow  perpetually,  eating  more  and  more  of  the  green 
fields,  and  diminishing  in  the  same  ratio  the  portion 
of  fresh  air  to  each  human  lung  inside  them.  In 
this  swarm  the  individual  counts  for  less  and  less. 
In  a  village  we  know  the  shoemaker  and  his  neigh- 
bour the  tailor.  They  have  room  enough  to  culti- 
vate an  individuality,  in  which  all  the  rest  of  us 
take  a  friendly  interest.  In  London  ten  thousand 
of  us  might  disappear  to-morrow,  and  the  human 
tide  would  roll  on  as  before.     Increasingly  clear 


170  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

does  it  become  that  if  we  are  to  secure  the  best 
ends  of  the  common  life  we  shall  have  to  revise, 
and  in  the  Greek  direction,  our  whole  doctrine  of 
the  city.  We  shall  seek  its  greatness  elsewhere 
than  in  mere  aggregation. 

Another  side  of  the  Greek  doctrine,  not  less 
suggestive  for  our  day,  was  its  application  to 
wealth.  Neither  Plato  nor  Aristotle  believed  in 
millionaires.  Their  philosophy  of  hfe,  both  indi- 
vidual and  social,  was  dead  against  this  particular 
phenomenon.  And  while  their  economic  theories 
were  in  some  respects  naive — as,  for  instance,  in 
their  view  of  interest — their  general  position  on 
this  subject  was,  it  has  to  be  confessed,  vastly 
higher  than  our  own.  It  was  their  virtue  in  these 
matters  to  look  steadily  to  the  end.  How  to  achieve 
the  fuUest,  highest  life,  in  a  man's  own  nature  and 
in  all  that  the  community  could  offer  him — this 
was  the  question  they  incessantly  asked  themselves. 
Mere  money-spinning,  where  it  absorbed  a  man's 
whole  time,  was,  in  this  view,  worse  than  a  waste. 
The  man  ought  rather  to  be  spinning  himself, 
developing  on  all  sides  his  capacity  and  stature  of 
being.  And  that  too,  surely,  is  a  doctrine  for  us. 
Modern  society,  in  its  rage  for  mere  accumulation,  is 
forgetting  the  alphabet  of  the  great  hving.  It  sub- 
stitutes the  size  of  its  money-bag  for  the  size  of  its 
own  soul.  Quaker  John  Woolman,  to  mention  him 
again,  who  gave  up  half  his  business  and  half  his 
income  in  middle  life,  alleging  as  his  reasons  that 
he  did  not  wish  his  sons,  through  beginning  too 
rich,  to  miss  the  bracing  of  life's  struggle,  and  also 
that  he  wished  himself   to  give  more  time  to  the 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  LIMIT  171 

personal  service  of  God  and  his  neighbour,  lifted 
our  doctrine  of  limit  here  surely  to  its  highest 
point — the  point  where  it  stands  not  as  of  Aristotle, 
but  as  of  the  mind  and  spirit  of  Jesus. 

One  could  add  indefinitely  to  these  applications, 
but  there  is  another  side  of  the  theme  which  opens 
on  another  and  deeper  line  of  thinking.  The  old 
doctrine  of  limit  was  intimately  connected  with  a 
doctrine  of  ends.  The  Greeks  had  no  difficulty 
about  final  causes.  Just  as  a  boat  was  made  of  a 
given  size  and  shape  to  serve  the  purpose  of  its  builder, 
so  our  life  in  its  orderings  and  limitations  showed 
in  like  manner  the  evidence  of  purpose.  We  know 
how  that  view  has  been  assailed  in  our  time  by  a 
certain  school  of  scientific  thinkers.  But  let  us 
consider  the  matter  a  little. 

A  fresh  mind,  untrammelled  by  the  schools, 
fixing  its  attention  on  the  facts  of  life,  would  be 
struck  probably  by  nothing  so  much  as  by  the  singu- 
lar Umits  of  man  and  his  world.  That  man  should 
be  so  much  and  no  more  ;  that  he,  who  can  calculate 
in  centuries  and  seons,  should  himself  have  some 
three  or  four  score  years  for  his  time-portion ; 
that,  carrying  in  him  a  concept  of  infinite  space, 
he  should  himself  occupy  some  six  feet  or  less  of  it ; 
that  he,  so  limitless  on  one  side,  should  be  so 
exactly  bounded  on  the  other,  is  surely  a  first- 
class  puzzle  to  begin  with.  Consider,  further, 
man's  environment.  He  is  in  a  universe  of  gigantic 
forces,  compared  with  which  his  own  resisting  power 
is  as  that  of  a  snail  under  a  Nasmyth  hammer.  In 
earthquakes  and  volcanoes  and  whirlwinds  he 
gets  hints  of  the  sort  of  world  he  is  in.     The  sun 


172  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

that  warms  him  is  a  fiery  furnace  thousands  of 
times  hotter  than  anything  he  knows  on  this  planet. 
The  smallest  as  well  as  the  largest  things  show  on 
occasion  this  incredible  and  destructive  energy. 
The  molecules  in  a  Crookes  tube  rush  with  a  velocity 
that  would  melt  any  metal  by  their  sheer  impact. 
Yet  these  giant  powers,  in  their  normal  action  u]Don 
man,  are  held  in  what  seems  a  marvellously  calcu- 
lated Hmit.  They  work  at  highest  pressure  outside, 
as  in  the  stupendous  energy  which  hurls  us  round 
the  sun  or  projects  us,  with  the  whole  planetary 
system,  on  that  other  journey  we  are  making 
through  space.  But  the  forces  that  directly  touch 
our  fife  are  all  tempered.  The  sun's  heat,  the 
winter's  cold,  the  sweep  of  winds,  the  flow  and 
ebb  of  tides,  the  fall  of  rain,  have  all  their  limits. 
A  little  more  on  this  side  or  that  and  we  were 
burned,  or  frozen,  or  drowned.  Meanwhile  through 
all  the  ages  of  man's  history  the  balance  has  been 
maintained,  and  the  miracle  of  life  has  gone  on. 

Naturalism  of  the  Haeckel  type  finds  in  all  this 
nothing  but  the  outcome  of  a  material  necessity, 
the  action  of  primordial  forces  which  worked  this 
way  because  they  could  work  in  no  other.  Man 
is  here  not  as  the  child  of  purpose  but  because  he 
is  the  kind  of  being  that  evolution  would  naturally 
produce,  and  whose  nature  harmonises  with  his 
environment.  But  this  school  of  thinking  is  rapidly 
being  found  out.  The  footrule  it  uses  is  discovered 
to  be  ludicrously  short  for  the  measurement  of 
the  universe  we  are  in.  As  an  eminent  scientist 
himself  puts  it  :  "  Science  can  only  indicate  the 
path  which  leads  to  territories  beyond  her  own, 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  LIMIT  173 

ruled  by  other  laws  than  those  to  which  her  realm 
is  subject."  Our  doctrine  of  hmit  receives  here,  in 
fact,  one  of  its  most  interesting  appUcations.  For, 
as  the  best  minds  now  perceive,  there  is  nothing  so 
strictly  bound  and  fettered  as  science,  considered 
as  an  interpreter  of  life.  Its  verdicts  deal  only 
with  one  world,  the  world  of  appearance, 
and  appearance  at  best  is  merely  the  vestibule 
of  reaUty.  Its  calculations  are  good  up  to  a  certain 
point — and  then  they  break  down  hopelessly. 
To  give  an  instance.  Science  deals  with  the  realm 
of  matter  and  force,  a  realm  which  in  all  its  parts 
is  conditioned  by  time  and  space.  It  reasons 
always  in  terms  of  time  and  space— in  terms,  that  is, 
of  succession  and  of  magnitude.  But  when  we 
question  it  about  these  terms  it  is  immediately 
landed  in  hopeless  contradictions.  On  its  own 
plane  of  reasoning  we  can  prove  it  equally  impos- 
sible that  the  cosmos  could  have  had  a  beginning, 
or  that  it  could  not  have  had  a  beginning  ;  and  that 
the  visible  universe  has  a  Umit,  or  that  it  has?io 
limit.  There  are  many  similar  dilemmas  known  to 
philosophy,  and  the  sum  of  them  combines  to 
make  abundantly  clear  the  sharply-marked  boundary 
where  the  mechanical  theory  ends,  leaving  us  with 
the  mystery  of  reality  all  unsolved. 

And  it  is  just  where  that  world  of  appearance 
ends  that  rehgion  begins.  In  every  age,  in  its 
most  naive  as  well  as  in  its  highest  manifestations, 
religion  has  always  stood  for  a  world  beyond  the 
visible,  a  world  that  transcends  the  mere  plus  and 
minus  verdicts  ;  a  world  not  so  much  seen  by  the 
intellect  as  felt  by  the  heart ;  a  world  which  takes 


174  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

matter  and  its  manifestations  as  a  secondary  affair  ; 
a  world  which  finds  its  hfe  not  in  ponderable  masses, 
but  in  will  and  purpose,  and  moral  values,  and 
spiritual  affinities.  The  further  science  advances 
the  more  clearly  does  it  show  the  necessity  and  the 
function  of  faith.  That  the  sense  by  which  we 
perceive  a  spiritual  world  is  trustworthy  is  shown 
by  its  persistence,  and  by  the  place  it  takes  in  our 
scale  of  moral  values.  As  Lecky  puts  it  :  "  That 
the  religious  instincts  are  as  truly  a  part  of  our 
nature  as  are  our  appetites  and  our  nerves  is  a 
fact  which  all  history  establishes,  and  which  forms 
one  of  the  strongest  [proofs  of  the  reality  of  that 
unseen  world  to  which  the  soul  of  man  continually 
tends." 

And  here  it  is  well  we  should  understand  the 
essential  difference  between  theology  and  reHgion. 
Theology  is  all  for  definitions,  for  boundary  h'nes, 
for  exact  expressions,  whereas  it  is  the  essence  of 
reHgion  that  it  is  free,  unlimited,  and  undefined. 
It  is  not  properly  seizable  by  the  intellect,  and  it  is 
by  a  sheer  impertinence  that  age  after  age  the 
theologians  have  presented  their  lucubrations  as 
the  final  word  upon  it.  Heavens  !  What  do 
these  people  take  themselves  for,  with  their  tin- 
pot  systems,  proclaimed  as  ultimate,  panopUed  in 
anathemas,  yet  in  dismal  succession  superseded 
one  after  another  by  the  sheer  growth  of  the  soul ! 
It  is  part  of  the  transcendence  of  Jesus  that, 
putting  aside  the  theology  of  His  day,  He  spoke 
to  humanity  in  words  and  in  a  tone  that  its  heart 
at  once  recognised  as  from  the  source  of  its  own 
deepest  aspiration. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  LIMIT  175 

It  is  the  wonder  of  our  life  that  we  belong  to 
the  limited  and  to  the  unlimited.  The  wise  man 
is  he  who  takes  full  account  of  both,  who  knows 
how,  at  all  points,  to  quahfy  the  one  by  the  other. 
In  doing  this  he  will  put  always  the  emphasis  on 
what  is  biggest  in  him.  Against  the  littleness  of 
his  knowledge  he  will  put  the  depth  and  range  of 
his  soul's  feeling  ;  against  the  brevity  of  his  mortal 
life  that  he  has  felt  eternity  ;  against  the  hard  limita- 
tions of  his  earthly  lot  the  measureless  range  of  his 
spiritual  kingdom.  Lamennais,  in  one  of  his  pas- 
sionate utterances,  declares  it  to  be  man's  misery 
that  he  is  torn  asunder  by  the  two  worlds  to  which 
he  belongs.  Rather  say  we,  that  herein  lies  his 
supreme  dignity,  and  the  road  to  his  final  joy. 


XIX 
Of  False  Independence 

When  Burns  sang  the  joy  "  of  being  independent  " 
he  set  vibrating  one  of  the  inmost  chords  of  his 
countrymen  and  of  the  entire  Anglo-Saxon  race. 
This  passion  for  independence  is  writ  over  our 
whole  history.  It  crops  out  in  a  multitude  of 
aphorisms,  composed  by  us  or  about  us.  We  say 
"  the  Englishman's  house  is  his  castle."  The 
French  say  of  us  "  not  only  is  England  an  island, 
but  every  Englishman  is  an  island."  It  is  this 
passion  which  made  England  Protestant  ;  which 
split  its  religion  into  a  multitude  of  sects  ;  which  in 
the  seventeenth  century  puUed  down  the  monarchy  ; 
which  in  the  eighteenth  century  created  the  demo- 
cratic United  States  ;  which  has  produced  the  freest 
literature  and  the  freest  institutions  the  world 
possesses.  The  man  we  most  respect  is  the  one 
who  stands  upright  on  his  feet,  four-square  to  all 
the  winds  that  blow,  "  lord  of  himself  though  not  of 
lands,"  as  Sir  Henry  Wotton  has  it.  The  race  is 
continually  producing  men  who  carry  the  principle 
to  all  lengths — a  George  Fox,  in  his  suit  of  leather  ; 
a  Walt  Whitman,  in  his  boathouse ;  a  Thoreau,  of 
whom    Emerson   says,    "  He    never   married  ;     he 

176 


OF  FALSE  INDEPENDENCE  177 

lived  alone  ;  he  never  went  to  church  ;  he  never 
voted  ;  he  refused  to  pay  a  tax  to  the  State  ;  he  ate 
no  flesh,  he  drank  no  wine.  .  .  .  He  chose  to 
be  the  bachelor  of  thought  and  nature." 

The  quality  in  itself  is  assuredly  a  great  one  and 
worthy  all  our  respect.  That  it  has  accomphshed 
such  things  in  the  world  and  produced  such  characters 
is,  on  that  head,  argument  enough.  One  traces, 
indeed,  in  the  actual  present  a  certain  declinature 
from  the  old  ideals  which  may  well  cause  misgiving. 
For  every  man  who  to-day  stands  upright  and 
pushes  forward  there  seem  half  a  dozen  who  are 
leaning  against  the  Avail.  Some  of  the  iron  has 
gone  out  of  our  blood.  The  sturdiness  of  the  father 
is  not  repeated  in  the  son.  Instead  of  emulating 
the  force  which  carried  the  elder  through  the  rough 
and  tumble  of  circumstance  to  his  present  height, 
the  younger  too  often  is  content  to  link  himself  on 
to  the  parental  energy,  as  a  car  to  the  engine,  and  to 
be  carried  along  as  mere  luggage.  We  could  do  with 
a  revival  of  the  earher  independence.  This  high 
respect  for  one's  own  body  and  soul,  as  ours  to  make 
the  best  of  ;  this  trust  in  our  own  faculty,  as  worth 
something  ;  this  brave  measuring  of  ourselves 
against  the  universe,  and  joyous  use  of  our  tools 
upon  its  possibilities  ;  this  preference  of  our  own 
earned  bread,  however  plain  or  scanty,  to  the  dole 
of  another — we  cannot  have  too  much  of  this,  in 
England  or  out  of  it.  ' 

What  we  propose  here  to  deal  with  is  a  quite 
different  independence,  a  false  or  bastard  species  which 
men  are  trying  at  in  various  spheres,  and  always 
with  bad  results.     The  error  is  one  not  so  much  of 

112 


178  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

personal  character  as  of  policies,  and  tendencies 
and  modes  of  thinking.  It  is,  in  fact,  whenever 
it  exhibits  itself,  a  kind  of  ignorance,  an  attempt  at 
the  impossible,  a  running  one's  head  against  the 
world's  adamantine  laws.  Yet  we  have  the  spirit 
at  work  to-day  over  the  whole  field  of  life — in 
religion,  in  morality,  in  politics,  and  in  commerce. 
In  every  instance,  as  we  shall  see,  it  is  an  attempt 
at  ignoring  the  cosmic  unity  ;  a  shutting  off  of  one 
sphere  from  communication  with  all  others,  as 
though  one  part  of  our  universe  could  ever  be 
disjoined  from  any  and  every  other  part.  It  is 
astonishing  with  what  persistence  men  continue  to 
act  on  this  assumption,  in  face  of  the  flat  denial 
of  it  which  nature  invariably  gives. 

That  this  notion  of  the  watertight  compartment 
in  thought  and  conduct  obtains  so  largely  is  not 
surprising  when  we  remember  that  it  is  only  in  our 
generation  that  the  idea  of  the  essential  unity  of 
things  has  begun  to  dawn  on  the  world.  It  is  our 
day  that  has  discovered  how  everything  changes 
into  everything  else  ;  how  electricity,  heat,  light, 
motion  are  modes  of  one  force  ;  how  the  very  atom, 
regarded  hitherto  as  the  fixed  point  in  physics,  is 
really  transmutable.  It  is  our  day  which  has  found 
out  the  oneness  of  all  substance  ;  how  the  materials 
of  our  planet  are  in  the  sun  and  in  Sirius  ;  how  all 
the  universe  is  in  touch;  how  the  faintest  impact 
on  the  luminiferous  ether  that  fills  space  causes  a 
tremor  which  is  felt  on  the  surface  of  countless 
worlds.  And  it  is  our  day  which  has  struck  on  the 
fact  of  the  interpenetration  of  all  laws  ;  that  there 
cannot  be  a  discovery  in  chemistry  or  biology  which 


OF  FALSE  INDEPENDENCE  179 

will  not  affect  the  entire  realm  of  thinking,  and  this 
because  the  whole  realm  of  Hfe— physical,  mental, 
moral,  and  spiritual— is  one.  What  the  early  world 
caught  a  glimpse  of  in  its  "  omnia  tendunt  ad  unum  " 
is  the  demonstration  of  to-day.  We  know  that 
all  is  in  one,  and  one  in  the  all. 

But  while  science  and  philosophy  have  together 
reached  this  height,  our  commoner  thinkings  and 
actings  are  a  long  way  below  it.  On  these  levels  men 
build  their  walls  as  though  nothing  had  happened 
higher  up.  To  begin  with  one  of  the  more  palpable 
illustrations.  The  larger  half  of  society  is  pars  ring 
its  schemes,  contrivings,  and  general  manner  of 
living  on  the  supposition  that  one  social  level 
can  be  independent  of  all  the  others.  What  has 
Kensington  to  do  with  Poplar,  the  West  End  with 
the  slum  ?  Why  should  Midas  in  his  palace  trouble 
about  Tom-all-alone  in  his  cellar  ?  Only  that,  as 
Dickens  put  it,  "  there  is  not  an  atom  of  Tom's 
shme,  not  a  cubic  inch  of  any  pestilential  gas  in 
which  he  lives,  not  one  obscenity  or  degradation 
about  him  but  shall  work  its  retribution  "—upon 
Midas  and  all  the  class  he  represents.  Carlyle 
in  "  Past  and  Present  "  tells  the  story  of  an  Irish 
widow  who,  her  husband  having  died  in  Edinburgh, 
went  forth  with  her  three  children,  bare  of  all 
resource,  to  seek  help  from  the  charitable  estabhsh- 
ments  of  that  city.  They  all  denied  her,  until,  her 
strength  faiHng,  she  sank  and  died  of  typhus  fever. 
But  some  seventeen  other  people  having  caught  the 
infection  died  also.  Upon  which  our  philosopher 
thus  comments  :  "  The  forlorn  Irish  widow  appUes 
to    her   fellow-creatures.     '  Behold    I   am   sinking, 


180  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

bare  of  help.  I  am  your  sister  ;  one  God  made  us. 
Ye  must  help  me  !  '  They  answer,  '  No,  impossible  ; 
thou  art  no  sister  of  ours.'  But  she  proves  her 
sisterhood  ;  her  typhus  fever  kills  them  ;  they  actu- 
ally were  her  brothers  though  denying  it."  It 
does  not  say  much  for  our  progress  in  what  we  may 
call  social  common-sense,  to  say  nothing  of  its 
higher  moralities,  that  it  takes  typhus  and  cholera 
to  teach  us  its  first  principles.  When  we  assert  our 
social  independence  ;  when  we  deny  that  brother- 
hood of  man  which  Christianity  proclaims,  plague 
and  fever  become  our  theologians,  and  drive  the 
truth  home. 

"  Become  our  theologians  "  !  This  reminds  us 
of  another  sphere  in  which  a  false  independence  has 
wrought  and  is  still  working  grievous  damage. 
Plague  and  fever  are  not  prepossessing  as  professors 
of  theology,  but  they  have  at  least  this  to  recom- 
mend them,  that  they  are  always  in  strict  accord- 
ance with  the  facts.  Their  first  principle  is  the 
essential  unity  of  the  universe,  which  they  will 
prove,  if  necessary,  by  Irish  widows  or  other  equally 
cogent  demonstrations.  They  are  entirely  up  to 
date  and  in  complete  harmony  with  all  other  truth 
that  is  to  be  had.  But  who  shaU  say  that  the 
theology  of  the  schools  has  attained  to  any  such 
position  ?  Much  of  it  hangs  now  in  mid-air,  un- 
propped,  unsupported.  The  Roman  syllabus  of 
1864  was  a  theologic  anathema  against  modern 
science  as  an  enemy  of  the  Church  and  God.  And 
in  present-day  Protestantism  there  are  writers  and 
preachers  of  considerable  vogue  who  teach  doctrines 
formulated  centuries  ago,  as  though  nothing  had 


OF  FALSE  INDEPENDENCE  181 

been  discovered  since.  They  would  be  shocked  to 
hear  that  their  sons  at  school,  or  college,  were  being 
taught  the  geology,  the  geography,  the  chemistry, 
the  biology  of  the  sixteenth  century.  But  they 
teach  the  theology  of  that  period,  as  though  the 
progress  in  these  other  departments  meant  no 
difference  to  this.  This  is  an  independence  which 
the  nature  of  things  will  not  suffer.  For  there  is  no 
discovery  in  science  which  does  not  inevitably 
react  on  dogma.  The  Copernican  astronomy  pub 
out  of  court  a  whole  w^orld  of  patristic  and  mediseval 
ideas.  Modern  geology  gave  us  an  entirely  new 
reading  of  Genesis.  Comparative  religion  has  altered 
all  our  conceptions  of  outside  faiths  and  their 
relation  to  Christianity.  Ecclesiastical  Protection- 
ism may  build  its  walls  heaven-high  round  the 
theologic  domain.  They  do  not  avail,  for  the 
Cosmos  is  a  confirmed  free  trader  in  ideas.  Noth- 
ing can  prevent  their  circulation  and  interpenetra- 
tion. 

While  ecclesiasticism  has,  to  its  hurt,  been  indulg- 
ing in  these  confusions,  it  is  curious  to  note  how  a 
precisely  similar  blunder  is  being  made  in  an  opposite 
quarter  of  thought.  Laborious  efforts  are  just  now 
being  put  forth  to  construct  what  is  called  "  an 
independent  moraUty  " — an  ethic,  that  is,  which 
is  to  be  quite  free  from  the  religious  influence  and 
the  rehgious  sanction.  There  are,  we  are  assured, 
materials  for  an  excellent  secularist  moral,  with  no 
thanks  to  the  Church.  Evolution  is  to  give  us  all 
we  want.  It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  theorists  of 
this  order  to  ask  how  evolution,  in  this  sphere,  has 
actually  worked,  and  the  part  which  the  religious 


182  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

instinct  has  played  in  it.     No  first-class  thinker  has 
ventured  to  leave  its  influence  out  of  his  calcula- 
tion.    When  Kant,  in  his  "  Critique  of  the    Pure 
Reason,"   showed  how  it  was  impossible  to  demon- 
strate   God,    Freedom,    and    Immortality   by  the 
intellect  alone,   he  found  them  all  in  the  deeper 
reason  of  the  soul  which  is  beyond  logic.     And  the 
general  voice  of  humanity  confirms  that  verdict. 
Hegel  is  stating  the  simple  fact  when  he  declares 
that  "  all  the  various  peoples  feel  that  it  is  in  the 
religious  consciousness  they  possess  truth,  and  they 
have  always  regarded  religion  as  constituting  their 
true  dignity,  and  the  Sabbath  of  their  soul."     Every- 
where the  healthy  growth  of  the  rehgious  instinct  has 
meant  the  rehabilitation  of  morals.     Everywhere 
the  decay  of  the  one  has  been  the  decay  of  the 
other.     When  Voltaire's  friends  were  one  day  argu- 
ing against  the  existence  of  God  and  a  future  life, 
he  ordered  his  servants  out  of  the  room.  When  asked 
why,  he  rephed,   "  Gentlemen,  I  do  not  want  to 
have  my  throat  cut."     He  had  taken  a  true  measure 
of  the  situation. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  direction  in  which  a 
false  independence  has  been  sought  in  the  sphere 
of  morals.  The  rehgionist,  as  well  as  the  outsider, 
has  tried  his  evasions.  Rehgions  of  ceremonial,  rehg- 
ions  of  enthusiasm,  reHgions  of  credal  shibboleths 
have,  age  after  age,  been  set  up  as  substitutes  for 
the  moral  law.  It  is  curious  to  watch  these  naive 
attempts  to  hoodwink  the  Almighty,  as  though  He 
did  not  know  His  business.  The  attempts  all 
break  down.  The  cosmos  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  them,  and  for  the  reason  that  it  is  built  and 


OF  FALSE  INDEPENDENCE  183 

everlastingly  sustained  on  the  silent,  irresistible, 
irreversible  ethical  laws.  Thus  is  it  that  slaveries, 
pohticalcorruptions,  business  iniquities,  whatever  the 
rehgious  pretensions  of  their  backers  and  abettors, 
spell  bankruptcy  in  the  end.  The  sum  will  not 
work  out  right.  All  the  rules  are  against  them.  It 
is  because  the  rule  of  three,  the  moral  principle  and 
the  rehgious  instinct,  in  fine  the  entire  cosmic 
machinery,  are  in  accord,  are  parts  of  one  whole, 
that  roguery,  in  the  Church  or  out  of  it,  comes  to 
its  inevitable  crash  in  the  end. 

Plainly  there  is  no  such  thing  as  independence 
for  us.  The  quahty  we  eulogised  at  the  beginning  is 
misnamed.  The  fighters  for  hberty,  the  men  who 
respect  themselves,  who  hold  their  own  in  the 
battle  of  circumstance,  are  what  they  are,  not  by 
aloofness  and  insulation,  but  by  alHance  with  the 
world's  facts  and  laws,  by  a  reasoned  and  complete 
dependence.  It  is  in  union  we  find  our  strength. 
Nine-tenths  of  ourselves  is  outside  ourselves. 
It  is  in  our  superb  faculty  of  alliance  that  we  dis- 
cover the  possibilities  of  life.  We  are  then  our- 
selves plus  the  universe.  The  true  man  is  a  focal 
point  where  everything  meets.  He  knows  himself 
one  with  God,  with  his  fellow,  with  every  force  that 
energises  in  the  heavens  above  and  on  the  earth 
beneath. 


XX 

The    Undefined    Moralities 

Not  the  least  of  the  difficulties  with  which  the 
hard-pressed  modern  spirit  is  beset  lies  in  the  fact 
that  it  has,  from  day  to  day,  to  construct  its  own 
morality.  We  are  only  at  the  beginning  of  ethics. 
Our  Bibles,  prayer-books,  and  other  spiritual 
directories  grew  up  in  times  so  much  younger  than 
ours.  In  them  we  find  eternal  principles,  but  a 
mighty  paucity  of  application.  The  soul  of  man 
to-day  finds  itself  embarrassed  by  its  growth. 
Its  height  enables  it  to  look  over  walls  which  shut 
in  the  prospect  for  our  fathers  ;  and  that  prospect 
for  the  present  is  somewhat  bewildering.  It  is 
largely  over  an  untrod  region  where  we  have  to 
make  our  own  roads.  Our  age  is,  of  course,  not 
unique  in  this  respect.  Every  generation  has  had 
to  provide  its  own  supplement  to  the  Ten  Command- 
ments. In  many  instances,  indeed,  the  supplement 
has  been  too  voluminous  a  production.  Cathohcism 
in  particular  has  seized  upon  this  sphere  of  "  the 
undefined  moralities  ''  to  erect  in  it  the  chief  strong- 
holds of  its  sway.  It  ofi'ers  itself  as  above  all 
things  a  director  of  consciences.  In  the  vast  and 
sinister    elaborations    of    the    Jesuit    casuistry,    in 

184 


THE  UNDEFINED  MORALITIES         1S5 

the  formidable  tomes  of  a  BeUarmiaej  a  Dens,  and 
a  Lignori  it  seeks  to  survey  and  anthoritatively 
pronounce  upon  the  whole  area  of  human  conduct. 
Anglicanism  has  followed  somewhat  haltingly  in 
the  same  track.  Jeremy  Taylor,  in  his  ''  Ductor 
Dubitantium,"  discusses,  with  his  ingenious  learning, 
an  enormous  number  of  moral  situations.  And  in 
his  confessional-box  the  new-style  Anglican  priest 
offers  himself  as  the  authorised  solver  of  his 
parishioners'  ethic-al  problems. 

Our  age  does  not,  however,  as  to  its  general 
movement,  show  sicms  of  goin^r  back  to  this  kind  of 
solution.  It  has  too  palpably  outgrown  it.  The 
ecclesiastical  answer  is,  it  finds,  too  often  no  answer. 
Circumstance  teaches  it  better  than  the  priest. 
It  perceives  that  the  very  difficulties  on  its  road, 
imposing,  as  they  do.  the  necessity  of  alert  and 
unsleeping  vigilance,  form  one  of  the  chief  factors 
of  the  soul's  education.  Our  business  here  plainly 
is  not  so  much  to  reach  our  Canaan  by  a  short  cut 
as  to  wander  awhile  in  the  wilderness  and  become 
strong  by  our  wandering.  The  fight  of  the  individual 
with  his  special  difficulties  is  his  athletic  exercise. 
His  very  blunders  help  to  form  him.  As  Vauven- 
ar^ues  puts  it  :  '*  Who  wishes  to  form  himself  on 
the  grand  scale  ought  to  risk  making  mistakes,  and 
not  to  allow  himself  to  be  beaten  down  by  them.'' 

The  position  of  the  modern  man — where  he  is 
in  possession  of  his  own  conscience — ^is  then,  we 
sav.  that  of  a  traveller  in  an  unexplored  country. 
He  has  to  find  Ms  way.  He  looks  up  from  his  Bible, 
Ins  books  of  religious  direction,  to  find  himself 
confronted  with   questions   about  which  they  are 


186  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

silent.  The  region  here  is  a  vast  one,  and  we  can 
do  no  more  than  glance  down  one  or  two  of  the 
directions  along  which  it  stretches.  The  undefined 
moralities  are  at  once  public  and  private.  They 
belong  to  our  action  as  fellow-citizens  in  the 
commonwealth,  and  also  to  the  daily,  intimate 
habitudes  of  our  separate  life. 

To  take  an  illustration  of  the  former  kind  ;  in 
what  an  extraordinary  tangle  do  we  find  ourselves 
on  the  subject  of  international  ethics  !  The  topic 
here,  indeed,  offers  us  an  admirable  example  of  the 
development  of  morality,  of  the  way  the  human 
spirit,  moved  by  the  inner  forces  which  govern  it, 
reaches  out  to  higher  and  ever  higher  solutions.  In 
the  old  days  the  modern  difficulty  had  not  even 
arisen.  The  question  was  so  easy !  Patriotism 
was  love  of  your  country  and  hatred  of  the  outsider. 
"  Love  your  friend  and  hate  your  enemy."  The 
Greek  called  the  foreigner  a  barbarian,  and  was 
prepared  at  every  opportunity  to  make  war  upon 
and  enslave  him.  The  Jew  would  die  for  Jerusalem, 
but  thought  it  a  religious  duty,  when  occasion 
offered,  to  lay  waste  Moab  and  Edom.  It  is 
actually  only  within  our  own  lifetime  that  inter- 
national ethics  have  come  up  as  a  matter  for  the 
general  conscience.  It  is  only  now  that  we  are 
waking  up  to  the  singular  conditions  that  prevail 
there  ;  that  we  are  conscious  of  the  extraordinary 
anomaly  of  statesmen  following  one  scale  of  moraUty 
for  their  private  life  and  an  entirely  different  one 
for  the  conduct  of  "  foreign  affairs."  It  is  only 
now  that  men  begin  to  ask  why  faith,  generosity, 
and  the  Christian  law  of  loving-kindness  should  be 


THE  UNDEFINED  MORALITIES         187 

recognised  in  our  family  and  social  dealings,  while 
mistrust,  cunning,  and  undisguised  self-interest 
should  be  the  recognised  motives  in  the  intercourse 
of  States. 

We  can  easily  test  the  new  moral  growth  in  this 
sphere  by  comparing  our  present  standpoint  with 
a  not  at  all  remote  past.     It  is,  for  instance,  inex- 
plicable to  us  how  England  could  have  forced  the 
American  Colonies  into  separation  under  conditions 
of  ill-feeling  and  of  bloodshed  ;    how,  as  has  been 
said,   "  Lord   North  could   have  lost  America  for 
£16,000  a  year  revenue  !  "     It  is  not  simply  the 
crass  stupidity  of  the  thing  that  amazes  us  ;    it  is 
the    want    of    moral   perception   which    prevented 
men  from  seeing  the  impossibility  of  governing  a 
high-spirited,    independent   people   by   mere   force 
and  violence.     Such  a  thing  simply  could  not  happen 
now  ;    it  could  not  happen  in  our  relations  with 
Canada   or  Australia.     And  yet  England  and  its 
Government  had  in  1775  the  same  pubUshed  moral 
codes    and     sanctions — Bibles,   prayer-books,    and 
what  not — as  we  now  possess.     It  is  the  "  undefined 
moralities  "  that  have  been  moving,  the  new  code 
of  the  human  spirit.     Look  also  at  the  feeling  of 
to-day  with  regard  to  war.     Here  again  the  author- 
ised moral  standards  are  where  they  were  ;    but 
man  is  not  what  he  was.     It  was  the  particular 
height  and  colour  of  his  thought  in  the  past  that 
stocked  the  world  with  arsenals  and  made  it  gUtter 
with  bayonets.     But  a  thought  of  another  height 
and  colour  is  now  here,  pushing  out  the  old.     And 
this  one  will  fill  the  world  with  something  quite 
other  than  bayonet  and  arsenal. 


188  OUK  CITY  OF  GOD 

When,  from  public  affairs,  we  come  to  life's  more 
private  and  intimate  side  we  discover  how  here  also 
we  are  constantly  moving  in  the  region  of  the  morally 
undefined.     In   the   most   important   concerns   we 
have  no  published   code   or  scale   of  values.     We 
act  by  that  secret  instinct  whose  working  reveals 
the  height  and  complexion  of  our  spirit.     And  here 
what  curious  varieties  we  find  !     Where,  for  instance, 
in  our  standard  ethics  have  we  a  proper  appraisement 
of  cheerfulness  ?     There  are  multitudes  of  excellent 
people,  with  consciences  that  quiver  to  the  slightest 
monitions  of  law  and  religion,  but  who  lower  the 
value  of  hfe  to  all  around  them  by  their  incessant 
gloom.     Is  not  this  a  kind  of  villainy  ?    What  if  a 
man  tells  me  the  truth  and  pays  me  twenty  shillings 
in    the    pound  ?     Is    that    enough  ?     Is    not    his 
lugubrious    countenance    a    species    of    robbery  ? 
Ought  it  not  to  be  an  indictable   offence  to  lower 
the  common  joy  of  living  by  inflicting  our  dismal 
moods  upon  the  world  ?     Hazlitt  thought  a  good 
companion   emphatically   the   greatest   benefactor. 
Says  Stevenson  with  entire  truth,  "  A  happy  man 
or  woman  is  a  better  thing  to  find  that  a  five-pound 
note     .     .     .     they    practically    demonstrate    the 
Great  Theorem  of  the  liveableness  of  life."     Hear 
Emerson  also  on  this  theme  :  "  There  is  one  topic 
peremptorily  forbid  to  all  well-bred,  to  all  rational 
mortals,  viz.,  their  distempers.     If  you  have  not 
slept,  or  if  you  have  headache  or  sciatica  or  leprosy 
or  thunder-stroke,  I  beseech  you  by  all  angels  to 
hold  your  peace,  and  not  pollute  the  morning,  to 
which   all  housemates   bring   serene   and   pleasant 
thoughts,   by  corruption  and   groans."     Is   there, 


THE  UNDEFINED  MORALITIES        189 

indeed,  a  more  frontal  virtue  than  this  of  good 
cheer  ?  And  yet  so  ethically  confused  are  we  that 
tender  consciences  by  the  score  around  us,  the  highest 
product  of  church  and  chapel,  are  not  aware  appar- 
ently that  it  is  a  virtue  !  They  plod  through  the 
commandments  and  rob  you  daily  of  your  sunshine  ! 
They  would  be  horrified  at  the  theft  of  a  penny, 
while  they  filch  from  their  neighbours  what  is  worth 
more  than  a  million  pennies — the  chance  of  being 
happy  ! 

What  a  moral  complex,  too,  is  that  presented 
by  the  daily  clash  of    duties  !     How  much  time 
and  strength  shall  we  give  to  our  private  business, 
and  how  much  to  the  public  ?     It  is  in  proportion 
as  a  man's  influence  widens  that  he  finds  the  ever- 
increasing  pressure  of  this  difficulty.     The  successful 
pastor  is  called  in  a  myriad  directions  outside  his 
own  special  sphere.     How  these  invitations  appeal 
to  him  !     What  want  of  workers,  leaders  in  that 
outer  field  !     What  reproaches  of  good  men  if  he 
turn  from  it !     But  from  the  other  side,  from  the 
home  work  which  awaits  his  hand,  what  reproaches 
again   wait   upon   neglect !     Who   shall   draw   his 
boundary-line  ?     There   is   none   can  draw  it  but 
himself.     Most  curious  also  is  it,  tragically  pathetic, 
indeed,  at  times,  to  note  how  men  have  gained  their 
moral  predominance  in  one  department  of  life  by 
the  moral  sacrifice  of  another.     Wesley  is  incom- 
parable as  evangelist  and  religious  leader.  He  could 
not  be  cited  as  a  model  husband.     And  speaking  of 
Wesley,    have   we   noticed   that   strange   piece    of 
undefined  ethic  which  arises  on  the  question  of  his 
relation  to  authority  ?     He  himself  finds  no  way  of 


190  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

carrying  out  his  mission  but  by  disobeying  the 
bishops  and  breaking  the  rules  of  his  Church.  From 
his  own  followers,  on  the  contrary,  he  requires  a 
strict  obedience.  "  Do  not  seek  to  mend  our  rules, 
but  keep  them."  The  man  whose  whole  strength 
lay  in  a  daring  personal  initiative  desires  as  the 
very  last  thing  to  see  that  character  reproduced  in 
his  converts.  The  ecclesiastical  rebel  founds  the 
severest  and  best-obeyed  ecclesiastical  rule  of  modern 
times.  'Tis  an  illustration  of  the  maxim,  famihar 
to  the  student  of  history,  but  not  found  in  the 
text-books,  that  the  morality  which  makes  a  great 
leader  is  something  quite  other  than  that  which 
makes  a  good  follower. 

It  were  indeed  an  almost  endless  task  barely  to 
enumerate  the  moral  dilemmas  of  our  time.  We  are 
not  sure  about  the  ethics  of  eating.  A  bill  of  fare 
is  a  problem  to  the  conscience.  Who  shall  tell  us 
how  much  time  we  should  give  to  work  and  how  much 
to  recreation  ?  Was  that  old  Greek  adage  justified, 
that  "  Zeus  frowns  upon  the  overbusy  "  ?  Should 
we  strive  for  the  greatest  possible  output  of  our 
zeal  and  energy,  or  seek  instead  i  to !  improve^^  its 
quality  ?  Were  it  better  if  we  had  done  "  a  hundred 
times  as  Uttle,  and  that  httle  a  hundred  times  as 
well "  ?  May  we  share  in  Schiller's  aspiration 
to  hve  "  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  my  spirit,"  or 
forget  all  that  in  soul-engrossing  activities  ?  Have 
we  balanced  the  claims  of  giving  versus  saving,  of 
generosity  versus  prudence  ?  To  what  extent  shall 
a  pubUc  teacher  say  out  what  he  thinks  and  knows  ? 
What  economies  of  utterance  shall  he  practise, 
out  of  regard  for  weak  brethren  and  wavering  faith  ? 


THE  UNDEFINED  MORALITIES        191 

Woman,  too  ;  how  shall  she  carry  herself  in  the 
new  world  that  is  here  ?  Shall  she  cultivate  the 
modesties  and  repressions  of  the  Victorian  ideal,  or 
strike  in  with  the  assertiveness,  independence,  and 
free  expression  of  this  later  time  ? 

The  problems  are  plainly  endless,  and  they  beset 
us  every  day.  And  the  higher  we  rise  the  more 
they  press.  The  fact  that  we  have  upon  our  hands 
so  vast  a  range  of  them  unknown  to  our  fathers  is, 
as  we  have  said,  evidence  of  the  constant  growth  that 
is  going  on  in  humanity.  The  old  text-books  no 
longer  suffice.  We  are  being  taken  out  of  them  to 
something  higher  and  surer,  to  that  constant  revela- 
tion which  is  being  communicated  to  earnest  and 
receptive  souls.  The  problems  are  an  education, 
and  as  we  face  them  we  are  conscious  of  a  Teacher. 
God  has  not  finished  His  Bible.  He  writes  its  new 
chapters  daily  upon  our  hearts.  With  "  Nil  sine 
Deo  "  as  our  motto  we  move  surely  and  serenely  on 
the  untrod  way.  Its  turns  are  baifiing  ;  the  cloud 
is  often  on  the  landscape  ;  but  the  road  leads  ever 
upwards. 


Part  III 
PERSONAL 


13 


XXI 
The    Gift    of    a   Day 

We  all  of  us  awoke  this  morning  and  began  a  new 
day.  A  commonplace  affair  enough,  the  repetition 
of  a  thousand  similar  awakenings.  But  the  wonder 
here  is  that  we  do  not  see  the  wonder  of  what  we 
have  done.  What  are  all  the  miracle-stories  of  folk- 
lore or  religion  in  comparison  with  the  marvel  of 
opening  our  eyes  upon  such  a  world  as  this  ?  It 
is  only  at  by-moments  we  taste  the  strangeness — 
shall  we  say  the  weirdness  ? — of  the  thing.  We  catch 
it  sometimes  when,  half  awake,  we  find  ourselves 
asking  which  is  the  reality — the  dreamland  we 
have  left  or  this  we  are  come  into  ?  Antecedent 
calculation  would  put  the  chances  at  milhons  to 
one  against  there  being  such  a  universe  as  the  one 
we  are  in  and  such  beings  as  we  are.  That  we 
actually  are,  and  where  we  are,  makes  anything 
else  so  easily  possible.  Future  existence  !  That 
surely  is  the  simplest  affair  compared  with  the 
a  priori  improbabihty  of  our  present  existence. 

Consider  the  consciousness  we  wake  into.  It  is 
the  ultimate  fact,  the  one  thing  we  know,  and  yet 
the  one  we  are  utterly  unable  to  explain.  How 
matter  and  force,  how  nerve  and  blood  corpuscle  can 

195 


196  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

turn  into  love  or  logic  is  an  unsolved  riddle.  Our 
mind  informs  us  of  an  outside  world  about  which 
we  are  perpetually  talking.  But  of  our  real  rela- 
tion to  it  we  know  nothing.  So  far  as  we  can  make 
out  there  would  be  no  outside  world  without  our 
consciousness,  or  the  consciousness  of  someone 
else.  Antarctic  explorers  have  recently  brought 
news  of  a  range  of  mountains  down  there  as  high  as 
Mont  Blanc.  But  could  these  mountains  exist  of 
themselves  ?  Could  there  be  such  a  thing  as  their 
height  apart  from  a  mind  that  calculates  height,  or 
their  whiteness  without  an  eye  that  knows  colour, 
or  their  cold  without  a  soul  that  knows  sensation  ? 
This  is  the  realm  of  puzzledom  we  find  ourselves 
plunged  into  afresh  every  morning. 

We  emerge  upon  our  day  out  of  sleep.  We  went 
to  bed  last  night  probably  without  thinking  of  the 
greatness  of  the  adventure.  For  there  we  took 
leave  of  ourselves,  and  laid  down  our  lives.  So  far 
as  our  personality  is  concerned  we  die  every  twenty- 
four  hours.  Our  body  becomes  inert,  our  reason 
fails,  our  will  ceases  ;  we  are,  through  the  darkness, 
the  playground  of  unknown  powers.  These  have 
their  own  way  with  us  ;  let  us  be  thankful  it  is 
mostly  a  kindly  way.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  in  his 
"  Religio  Medici  "  thanks  God  "  for  his  happy 
dreams,"  and  so  should  we  all.  May  we  not  call 
them  a  valuable  part  of  life's  assets  ?  Some  of  us 
have  reached  there  our  highest  moments.  These 
unknown  dream-powers  work  for  us.  We  remember 
Stevenson's  "  brownies  "  ;  how,  as  he  slept,  they 
gave  him  plots  of  stories  and  constructed  whole 
chapters.     Meanwhile  our  main  life  has  gone  under 


THE  GIFT  OF  A  DAY  197 

— where  we  know  not,  only  that  it  is  clean  away  from 
our  guidance  and  cognisance.  But  this  morning, 
after  the  night's  oblivion,  it  came  back  to  us — not  at 
our  call,  mark  you,  but  by  the  working  of  its  own 
occult  machinery — came  back  with  all  its  elements  of 
sensation,  memory,  will,  desire,  Hnking  us  once 
more  to  the  working  universe  and  to  all  our  yester- 
days. With  this  miracle  our  day  begins.  Observe 
now  what  it  offers  us. 

It  takes  perhaps  a  ripened  age  and  an  experi- 
enced spirit  to  appraise  a  day  at  its  proper  valuation. 
Si   jeunesse   savait !     But   youth   does   not   know. 
Heedless,  and  with  a  wealth  of  years  in  store,  it 
rattles  the  time-coinage  in  its  pocket,  and  is  careless 
of  sixpences.     But  the  elders,  whose  years  are  num- 
bered,   become   greedy   of  time.      "  Our    blessings 
brighten  as  they   take    their   flight."     Every  day 
counts ;  its  passage  is  a  felt  diminution.     But  to  a 
healthy  nature  that  is  only  one  side  of  the  reckon- 
ing.    To    such   the   new   morning   is    not    only   a 
treasured   portion    of    a    swiftly    dwindling    store  ; 
it  is  not  only  a  miracle  ;  it  is  also  a  sacrament.     For 
here  once  more,  out  of  the  infinite,  there  has  been 
handed  over  to  us  a  priceless  gift,  which  we  could 
not  claim,  and  which  we  are  powerless  of  ourselves 
to  produce.     The  gates  swing  open  each  morning 
and  we  are  ushered  into  the  spacious  domain  of  our 
thought  and  feeling,  of  our  possessions  and  activities. 
"  Here  is  your  paradise ;  enter,  enjoy,  achieve !  " 
As  we  muse  on  this  we  reahse,  as  Schleiermacher 
taught   the    mocking   Germans   of   his   generation, 
how  the  only  sane  attitude  to  life  is  the  religious 
attitude,  how  only  in  this  way  can  we  properly 


198  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

adjust  ourselves  to  a  cosmos  whose  scheme  from 
end  to  end  is  one  of  pure,  unmerited  grace,  of  a 
boundless  giving.  That  one  could  take  such  a 
gift  as  this  without  acknowledgment,  without  the 
devotion  of  his  powers  to  the  Giver,  were  a  mean- 
ness against  which  the  stones  should  cry  out. 

There  comes  here,  of  course,  the  inevitable 
question — It  is  shouted  at  us  from  a  thousand 
throats — "  is  there  not  another  side  to  all  this  ? 
What  of  the  multitudes  who  open  their  eyes  day  by 
day  upon  nothing  but  dreariness  ;  upon  the  deadly 
monotonous  round  of  cheap  labour  ;  upon  a  hope- 
less, ill-paid  servitude  ?  What  you  are  here  celebrat- 
ing is  the  day  of  the  well-to-do  ;  of  the  Sir  Thomas 
Brownes,  of  the  man  with  a  thousand  a  year.  Let 
him  rejoice  in  his  luck.  He  ought  to.  With  a 
pound  a  week  how  different  the  story  !  "  And  truly 
there  is  ground  enough  for  the  criticism.  God 
forbid  we  should  allow  our  personal  gratitude  to 
degenerate  into  a  complacent  acceptance  of  things 
as  they  are.  Can  I  be  satisfied  with  being  up  while 
my  brother  is  down  ?  A  curse  on  optimism  if  it 
means  content  with  a  system  which  keeps  any 
mortal  of  us  out  of  his  sunshine  !  A  Christian  soul 
is  bound  by  its  very  contract  to  agitate  till  every 
human  being  has  room  enough  for  his  proper  ex- 
pansion, opportunity  for  taking  his  fill  of  life. 

But  let  us  make  no  mistake  on  the  other  side. 
We  still  believe  in  "  the  gift  of  a  day."  Taking 
things  as  they  are,  we  say,  with  Kenan,  that,  properly 
managed,  they  yield  everywhere  their  surplus  of 
happiness.  As  to  poverty,  people  too  often  call 
themselves  poor  because  they  have  not  taken  the 


THE  GIFT  OF  A  DAY  199 

trouble  to  reckon  up  their  estate.  They  do  not 
see  the  way  riches  are  distributed.  Mr.  Carnegie 
the  other  day  was  offering  millions  for  another  clear 
ten  years.  The  young  fellow  on  the  street  there 
has  a  clear  forty  of  them  in  his  blood  and  bones. 
Would  you  take  fifty  thousand  for  your  eyes  ? 
Is  there  a  man  living  fool  enough  to  exchange  his 
health  for  five  thousand  a  year  and  perpetual 
rheumatism  ?  Can  you  then  call  yourself  poor 
when  you  are  carrying  about  with  you  over  fifty 
thousand  pounds'  worth  of  vision-power  and  of 
clean-limbedness  ?  When  it  is  a  question  of  Ufe 
versus  figures  we  are  all  such  poor  hands  at  reckon- 
ing. John  Wesley  in  his  "  Journal  "  tells  of  one  of 
his  preachers  who  died  leaving  for  fortune  one  and 
fourpence  in  cash.  But  his  theme  had  been  perpetu- 
ally of  the  love  of  God,  and  his  last  words  were  of  his 
joyous  confidence  in  that  love.  Wesley  did  not 
count  his  preacher  to  be  at  all  poor,  nor  do  we. 

Bad  social  arrangements  may  do  much  to  spoil 
life,  but  at  the  worst  they  are  a  long  way  from 
spoiling  it  altogether.  The  capitalists,  as  Thoreau 
said,  "  cannot  cut  down  the  clouds."  No,  nor  can 
they  bottle  the  sunshine,  nor  stay  the  march  of 
spring.  It  does  not  require  an  income  of  four  figures 
to  share  Milton's  rapture.  Are  we  not  with  him 
when  he  says  :  "In  those  vernal  seasons  of  the 
year,  when  the  air  is  calm  and  pleasant,  it  were  an 
injury  and  sullenness  against  Nature  not  to  go 
out  and  see  her  riches,  and  partake  in  her  rejoicing 
with  heaven  and  earth "  ?  And  when  you  are 
shut  indoors,  plying  maybe  for  wage  a  monotonous 
task,  the  task  has  not  got  the  whole  of  you.     The 


200  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

cosmos  has  not  given  you  away  to  that  extent.  It 
has  secured  you  immense  reserves  of  Kfe  which 
none  can  invade.  The  more  routine  your  task, 
the  more  your  thoughts  are  your  own.  And  thoughts 
are  often  at  their  best  and  happiest  when  one  is 
driving  a  nail  or  watching  a  loom.  You  are  a 
thousand  things,  remember,  beside  an  employe. 
You  participate  in  all  that  is  human.  You  are  on 
the  tide  of  the  common  progress.  You  behold  every 
year  the  march  of  the  seasons,  the  incomparable 
beauty  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  You  may 
be  student,  comrade,  lover,  parent.  You  are  in  a 
spiritual  kingdom,  working  out  a  character,  a 
personality.  You  are  a  partaker  of  God's  grace,  of 
all  He  is  and  is  doing  for  humanity. 

Whatever  the  situation,  our  happiness  to-day  is  to 
so  enormous  an  extent  in  our  own  hands.  A  man 
is  happy  when  he  thinks  he  is.  And  why  should  I 
not  this  morning  think  so  ?  Why  should  I  be  gloomy 
when  I  can  be  glad  ?  Here  inside  me  is  a  force  that 
can  drive  away  the  clouds.  Our  will  power,  which 
can  call  up  good  thoughts  and  disperse  bad  ones  ; 
which  can  concentrate  on  "  the  lighted  side  of 
things  "  ;  which  can  fall  back  on  gracious  memories 
as  a  refuge  from  present  evils  ;  which,  in  a  word, 
can  make  its  own  weather,  winning  through  thickest 
clouds  to  the  blue  sky  and  shining  sun — our  will 
power,  we  say,  if  we  will  only  use  it,  is  our  philo- 
sopher's stone,  that  turns  all  things  into  gold.  The 
more  we  give  it  to  do  the  better  it  works.  Adversity 
braces  it  as  the  Styx  hardened  Achilles. 

The  will,  in  a  religious  soul,  regards  each  day  as  a 
pure  gift,  to  be  made  the  best  of.     Its  outer  rough- 


THE  GIFT  OF  A  DAY  201 

ness  only  hides  the  treasures  that  are  in  it.  The 
jewel  often  enough  is  cased  in  uncouthest  packings. 
Our  problem  is  each  morning  to  find  that  jewel. 
We  are  bunglers  if  we  miss  it,  if  we  miss  our  happi- 
ness. Happiness,  we  say,  for  that  is  what  the  day 
should  bring  us.  That  the  soul  was  meant  for  joy 
is  shown  by  its  instinct  for  it,  an  instinct  which  the 
New  Testament  takes  for  granted  and  seeks  always 
to  develop.  Gloom — tristitia — even  in  the  monkish 
morality,  was  regarded  as  of  the  nature  of  mortal  sin. 
Jean  Paul  is  in  the  full  Christian  tradition  when  he 
exclaims,  "  Be  every  minute,  man,  a  full  life  to 
thee  !  Enjoy  thy  existence  more  than  thy  manner 
of  existence,  and  let  the  dearest  object  of  thy  con- 
sciousness be  this  consciousness  itself."  There  is  a 
false  philosophy,  followed  by  many,  which  postpones 
all  this  to  the  future.  Such  look  from  a  sordid  present 
to  the  better  beyond.  Their  heaven  is  to-morrow. 
They  do  not  reflect  that  their  future  is  always  no 
more  than  a  coming  present,  and  that  if  they  cannot 
achieve  something  with  "  now  "  they  will  achieve 
nothing  at  all.  To-day,  if  ever,  God  is  Perfect  Love, 
and  we  can  live  in  that  and  have  it  live  in  us.  A 
wondrous  word  for  us  here  is  that  of  Dr.  Donne,  as 
reported  by  Izaak  Walton,  "  Blessed  be  God  that 
He  is  God,  only  and  divinely  like  Himself." 

To-day  is  given  us  not  only  for  enjoyment  but  for 
progress.  The  true  happiness  is  no  idle  passivity. 
It  is  a  movement  towards  higher  things.  As  time 
passes  a  disciplined  nature  becomes  more  and  more 
jealous  of  the  hours.  To-day  must  jdeld  its  fruitage, 
for  it  will  never  come  again.  It  is  this  considera- 
tion which  makes  one  astonished  at  the  methods  of 


202  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

so-called  "  Society,"  which  seem  nothing  more  than 
an  elaborate  arrangement  for  the  wasting  of  time. 
Think  of  men  and  women  spending  their  days  and 
nights  in  playing  bridge — in  a  universe  where  there 
is  everything  to  learn  and  everything  to  be  done  ! 
If  life  is  a  game  this  assuredly  is  not  the  way  to 
play  it.  The  laws  of  the  game,  fixed  from  eternity, 
make  it  impossible  for  to-day  to  be  a  success  if 
yesternight  was  spent  in  dissipation.  Talk  of 
orthodoxies  and  heterodoxies  !  The  modern  hetero- 
doxy, beside  which  all  others  sink  into  insignifi- 
cance, is  the  neglect  by  men  and  women  of  the  first 
elements  of  the  science  of  living. 

Carpe  diem,  says  the  Roman  poet.  "  Pluck  the 
day."  We  should  be  able  to  do  it  now  to  better 
effect  than  Horace.  The  fruit  is  richer.  "  Here 
and  now,"  as  an  American  writer  has  it,  "  is  Ufe 
eternal,  with  gleams  of  inexhaustible  possibilities 
around  and  beyond  us."  Truly  it  is  a  great  thing 
to  be  alive  to-day.  When  its  hours  have  passed  we 
shall  sleep  in  our  beds,  expecting  that  the  Power  that 
has  withdrawn  our  consciousness  will  to-morrow  set 
it  going  again.  In  that  faith  a  healthy  soul  goes  to 
its  final  sleep,  looking  to  the  same  beneficent  Almighti- 
ness  for  a  yet  more  wondrous  awakening. 


XXII 
Our  Personal  Fortunes 

Socrates  found  the  city  more  interesting  than  the 
country,  as  did  Dr.  Johnson  and  Charles  Lamb  a 
good  many  centuries  after.  To  aU  cultured  minds, 
indeed,  the  appeal  of  the  city  is  immense  ;  it  is 
fascinating  to  form  one  in  this  vast  group  of  souls. 
You  walk  down  a  crowded  street.  What  a  story 
behind  every  face  you  look  into  could  it  only  be 
fully  told  !  These  men,  women,  youths,  maidens 
carry  each  of  them  the  ever-present  consciousness 
of  their  separate  fates.  They  know  to  a  nicety 
their  income  ;  how  much  they  have  saved,  or  what 
they  owe.  That  figure,  great  or  small,  what  a 
significance  it  has  for  them  !  Beyond  this  each 
has  an  account  with  the  universe,  vaster  and  more 
complicated,  of  which  they  also  know  something, 
but  not  so  much.  The  faces  all  speak.  They  are 
all  accurate  registers  of  inward  experiences.  Every 
line  of  feature  is  a  history  ;  it  is  the  hardening  into 
flesh  and  form  of  joys  and  sorrows,  of  victories  and 
defeats.  Each  pair  of  eyes  is  intent  on  two  prospects. 
There  is  a  gaze  upon  all  the  bustling  visible  of  the 
city's  life  ;  there  is  another,  awesome  and  wistful, 
forward    on    to    that    immeasurable    unknown    to 

203 


204  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

which  they  all  are  being  hurried,  but  which  will  be 
aUke  to  no  one  of  them. 

This  singularity  of  man,  his  perpetual  wrestle 
with  the  unknown,  has  been  from  the  beginning 
the  subject  of  his  deepest  thought.  It  has  created 
philosophies  and  religions.  In  ruminating  upon  it 
man  has  fled  instinctively  from  chance  to  personality. 
He  could  not  bear  to  think  that  his  fate  was  a  mere 
toss-up.  So  we  have  the  Latins  turning  their 
"  Fors,"  which  signified  luck,  hap,  accident,  into 
"  Fortuna,"  not  a  word  only,  but  a  goddess,  whose 
worship  was  one  of  the  most  popular  in  Italy. 
Her  functions  were  steadily  extended  until  they 
spread  over  the  whole  private,  domestic,  and  national 
life.  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  materialism 
that  at  present  envelops  our  own  age  that  our  word 
"  fortune "  in  English,  descending  from  these 
heights,  does  duty  simply  for  our  money  and 
possessions.  When  we  talk  of  a  man's  fortune, 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  we  mean  his  bank  balance, 
his  rent-roll,  his  personal  and  real  estate. 

But  in  what  we  have  here  to  say  we  propose  to 
extend  the  definition.  It  is  that  larger  account,  of 
which  money  is  a  mere  detail,  with  which  we  propose 
to  deal — our  entire  traffic  with  existence,  and  the 
outcome  of  it.  In  the  survey  we  are  struck  immedi- 
ately with  one  notable  difference  in  the  human 
experience.  The  events  of  life,  of  any  hfe,  belong 
to  two  classes.  A  vast  number  of  them  are  in  the 
class  of  the  calculable  ;  but  another  host,  not  less 
vital  or  determinative  of  our  fate,  belong  to  the 
incalculable.  As  you  anticipate  to-morrow  you  can 
reckon   upon   a   quantity   of  what   may   fairly   be 


OUR  PERSONAL  FORTUNES     205 

termed  certainties.  The  sun  will  rise  at  a  given 
hour  ;  the  world  will  look  very  much  as  it  does 
to-day  ;  the  bank  will  be  open  ;  the  laws  of  com- 
merce will  be  duly  operating  ;  the  principles  of  the 
"  Rule  of  Three  "  will  not  have  changed.  This 
great  area  of  the  certainties — an  area  which,  with 
the  growth  of  human  intelligence,  is  ever  widening 
— enables  us  to  predict  a  good  deal  of  our  future, 
and  with  tolerable  assurance. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  the  peculiarity  of  the  human 
fate — that  which  makes  life  so  vividly  interesting 
and  at  the  same  time  so  awesome — is  the  fact  that, 
into  the  tamed  and  well-ordered  sphere  of  the 
calculable,  there  are  perpetually  intruding  the 
mysterious  forces  of  the  incalculable.  With  all  our 
knowledge  we  do  not  know  our  universe  yet.  We 
are  mere  scratchers  of  its  surface,  and  it  is  continu- 
ally springing  upon  us  fresh  surprises.  A  William 
of  Orange  shall  go  through  his  battles  and  dangers  of 
all  kinds  unscathed  to  stumble  fatally  at  the  last 
over  a  molehill.  You  come  sound  in  wind  and 
limb  through  the  earthquake  to  lame  yourself  for  life 
over  a  bit  of  orange-peel  on  the  pavement.  There 
is  an  event  approaching  you,  which  has  been  on  its 
way  through  eternity.  All  unknowing,  your  course 
moves  towards  it.  You  will  meet  it  to-morrow 
and  all  life  will  be  changed.  It  may  be  a  face  that 
will  then  for  the  first  time  look  on  you  ;  or  a  book 
that  you  will  open  ;  or  a  death,  or  a  birth.  When 
we  have  calculated  to  the  last  ounce  all  our  powers 
and  faculties,  and  what  they  seem  capable  of  accom- 
plishing in  the  world,  we  are  only  at  the  beginning 
of  the  reckoning.     Our  fortune  is  an  affair  not  only 


206  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

of  ourselves  but  of  a  whole  unknown  world  outside — 
a  world  out  of  which  at  any  moment  may  come  the 
most  wondrous  alliances,  the  most  unimaginable 
fates.  Of  what  avail  Napoleon's  genius  had  Keller- 
man  failed  to  come  up  with  his  dragoons  at  Marengo 
when  all  seemed  lost  for  the  French  ?  Look  back 
at  your  own  career,  and  note  how  at  critical  points 
of  it  the  affair  has  been  taken  out  of  your  hands,  and 
events  mightier  than  yourself  have  shaped  it  for 
you  !  What,  then,  is  this  unknown  that  incessantly 
breaks  in,  that  plays  so  masterly  a  role  in  our  drama  ? 

How  mighty  is  the  unknown  !  In  comparison 
with  its  operation  how  infinitesimal  our  own  share 
in  our  own  life  !  We  are  here  as  the  results  of  a 
force  that  has  been  working  from  eternity.  We 
are  thrust  into  our  lot  without  a  word  of  explanation. 
Why  in  this  tiny  planet  instead  of  the  other  end  of 
the  cosmos  ?  Why  a  man  or  a  woman  and  not  an 
archangel  or  a  beetle  ?  Why  to  have  waked  in  the 
nineteenth  or  twentieth  century  instead  of  the 
fifth  or  the  fortieth  ?  Why  with  this  particular 
status,  this  mental  endowment,  this  temperament  ? 
With  your  host  of  queries  you  knock  at  the  door 
and  get  no  reply.  "  Here  you  are  and  make  what 
you  can  of  it  !  "  That  seems  the  word,  though 
even  this  does  not  come  as  a  word,  for  no  articulate 
sound  ever  breaks  the  silence,  except  your  own 
voice  and  that  of  your  brother  man,  as  mystified 
as  yourself. 

The  modern  mind  is  tortured  by  this  problem 
and  does  not  see  its  way  to  a  happy  solution. 
WilUam  Watson  speaks  of  man  as  "  child  of  a 
thousand    chances    'neath    the     indifferent     sky." 


OUR  PERSONAL  FORTUNES     207 

Maeterlinck  tends  to  the  same  pessimistic  view. 
"  For  although,"  says  he,  "  it  has  not  perhaps  been 
incontrovertibly  proved  that  the  unknown  is  neither 
vigilant  nor  personal,  neither  sovereignly  intelligent 
nor  sovereignly  just,  or  that  it  possesses  none  of 
the  passions,  intentions,  virtues,  and  vices  of  man, 
it  is  still  incomparably  more  probable  that  the 
unknown  is  entirely  indifferent  to  all  that  appears 
of  supreme  importance  in  this  life  of  ours."  This 
is  the  Heine  spirit,  which  regards  the  world  as  Das 
qualvoU  uralte  Rdthsel,  und  ein  Narr  wartet  auf 
Antwort,  "  that  torturing  eternal  riddle  to  which 
only  the  fool  expects  an  answer." 

But  things  are  not,  surely,  as  bad  as  that.  Else 
the  world  could  hardly  be  so  comfortable  and  merry 
a  place.  For  our  part,  instead  of  the  cosmic 
indifference  we  are  struck  at  every  point  with  the 
cosmic  kindness.  Consider  our  w^ay  of  coming 
into  this  world  !  Into  a  universe  where  million-ton 
forces  are  hurtling ;  where  suns  are  blazing  at 
temperatures  a  thousand  times  hotter  than  our 
furnaces  ;  where  stars  and  planets  are  rushing  across 
space  at  inconceivable  velocities  ;  into  this  tremend- 
ous scene  comes  the  httle  child,  life's  feeblest  spark, 
that  a  breath  would  extinguish.  Yet  it  lies  quietly 
on  its  mother's  breast,  encircled  by  that  most  wonder- 
ful of  products,  a  mother's  love.  The  blazing  suns, 
the  million-ton  forces  do  not  hurt  it ;  they  caress 
it ;  co-operate  to  its  safety  and  growth.  From  the 
beginning  our  bairn,  in  this  most  extraordinary  scene 
of  things,  is  quite  at  home.  Wind  and  sun,  sea 
and  shore,  will  be  its  playfellows.  Inside  it,  packed 
away  in  mind  and  body,  is  a  whole  apparatus  of 


208  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

happiness.  This,  at  least,  seems  more  than  a  cosmic 
indifference. 

Consider  also  that  stream  of  tendency  on  which 
we  are  all  afloat,  its  quahty,  and  the  point  towards 
which  it  flows.  The  force  of  gravitation  which 
keeps  our  earth  suspended  over  empty  space,  and 
whirls  it  round  the  sun,  is  not  less  mighty  than 
the  invisible  power  which  operates  unceasingly, 
though  invisibly,  in  the  sphere  of  the  human 
consciousness,  moving  always  in  one  direction. 
Keeping  pace  with  th^^  process  in  the  material  world 
by  which  flaming  gases  are  converted  into  soHd 
earth,  and  earth  into  vegetable,  and  vegetable 
into  animal,  and  animal  into  man,  does  this  inner 
force,  working  ever  on  the  mind,  lift  it  from  barbar- 
ism to  reason,  from  reason  to  morals,  from  moral  to 
spiritual.  On  this  unseen  power  the  soul  rests  as 
secure  as  our  planet  on  the  viewless  air.  It  is  as 
men's  acquaintance  grows  with  this  power  and  its 
laws  that  they  become  ever  bolder  in  their  experi- 
ments with  hfe.  They  discover  that  every  rudest 
experience  has  a  moral  basis,  is  packed  with  moral 
issues.  They  see  that  each  event  as  it  passes  over 
us  leaves  its  own  deposit,  which  forms  henceforth 
a  new  part  of  ourselves.  They  see,  further,  that, 
according  to  our  treatment  of  these  experiences 
will  be  the  kind  of  deposit  they  leave.  What  a 
happening  leaves  in  us  depends  on  what  we  bring  to 
it.  Nothing  happens  to  us  which  is  not  of  the 
nature  of  ourselves.  Thus  ultimately  our  moral 
fortunes  are  recognised  as  our  only  real  ones. 

It  is  out  of  this  higher  discernment  that  the  hero- 
isms and  martyrdoms  have  grown  that  age  after 


OUR  PERSONAL  FORTUNES     209 

age  have  illuminated  history.  So  sure  have  the 
great  souls  become  of  the  strength  and  universaUty 
of  the  moral  law  that  they  have  cheerfully  ventured 
their  whole  private  fortune  upon  it.  Plato  knew 
the  secret  when,  almost  in  the  language  of  St.  Paul, 
he  declared  that  all  things  work  for  good  to  the  good 
man.  So  did  the  Stoics,  who  affirmed  that  if  we 
acted  in  harmony  with  the  Eternal  Reason  no  harm 
could  befall  us.  "  Everything  great  and  good," 
says  Fichte,  "  on  which  our  present  existence  rests, 
and  from  which  it  has  proceeded,  exists  only  because 
noble  and  powerful  men  have  resigned  all  the 
enjoyments  of  Ufe  for  the  sake  of  ideas."  They  did 
this  because  of  their  complete  assurance  that  the 
Power  behind  the  ideas  would  more  than  vindicate 
them. 

It  is  when  considerations  of  this  sort  have 
gained  their  full  hold  upon  us  that  we  have  perforce 
to  break  at  once  with  the  pessimism  of  our  time  and 
with  the  brutal  worldUness  that  seems  now  also  in 
the  ascendant.  If  the  universe  is  moral ;  if  the  Hfe 
is  more  than  meat  and  the  body  than  raiment,  what 
kind  of  intelligibiUty  is  there  in  making  our  career, 
to  its  last  hour,  a  mere  mad  rush  for  material 
accumulation  ?  What  kind  of  inner  growth  is  to 
be  had  out  of  your  twenty  milHons  ?  The  soul  has 
no  place  for  them.  You  can  neither  build  them 
into  you  nor  take  them  with  you.  Cicero  wonders 
that  men,  as  they  come  nearer  their  journey's  end, 
should  go  on  burdening  themselves  with  more  and 
more  luggage.  We  are  minded  of  the  picture 
which  Erasmus  draws,  in  his  "  Praise  of  Folly," 
of  "  decrepit  old  fellows  that  look  as  hollow  as 

14 


210  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

the  grave  into  which  they  are  falhng,  that  rattle  in 
the  throat  at  every  word  they  speak,  .  .  . 
whose  skin  seems  already  dressed  into  parchment, 
and  their  bones  already  dried  to  a  skeleton,"  but 
who,  as  he  goes  on  to  describe,  grasp  with  unabated 
eagerness  after  more  worldly  good  and  more  fleshly 
delight.  Folly,  truly.  The  life-riddle  is  not  solved 
that  way. 

We  have  spoken  here  so  far  only  of  the  universal 
moral  laws  and  of  the  stream  of  tendency.  Chris- 
tianity has  translated  these  terms  into  something 
more  affirmative.  Behind  law  it  discerns  a  Person. 
In  our  daily  experiences  it  bids  us  recognise  the 
ever-fresh  revelation  of  a  gracious  Will.  And  the 
religious  instinct  which  supports  these  affirmations 
justifies  itself  by  its  inner  effects  upon  us.  Here 
is  a  view  which  makes  for  inner  serenity,  for  cheer- 
fulness, for  the  utmost  daring  of  aspiration,  for  the 
energy  which  insists  on  getting  the  best  out  of 
ourselves.  The  faith  that  lifts  you  most,  that 
extracts  from  outer  events  the  wholesomest  nutri- 
ment, that  makes  for  the  fullest  life  in  yourself  and 
your  neighbours — is  not  this  plainly  the  thing  to 
seek  ?  In  this  light  our  personal  fortunes  seem 
after  all  in  good  hands,  and  we  join  with  our  poet  in 
his  valorous  song  : 

Grow  old  along  with  me ! 

The  best  is  yet  to  be. 
The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made : 

Our  times  are  in  His  hand 

Who  saith  "  A  whole  I  planned, 
Youth  knows  but  half  ;  trust  God  :  see  all,  nor  be  afraid  !  " 


XXIII 
Friends  and   Friendship 

One  wonders  at  times  whether  modern  hfe  offers  a 
friendship  at  all  resembling  that  of  antiquity.  At 
any  rate  we  do  not  talk  of  it  as  did  the  ancients. 
The  "  De  Amicitid  "  sounds,  much  of  it  at  least, 
strange  to  our  ears.  We  do  not  find  amongst  our 
young  men  alliances  such  as  that  between  Harmodius 
and  Aristogeiton,  or  between  Damon  and  Pythias,  or 
Orestes  and  Py lades.  Have  we  in  modern  society 
anything  akin  to  the  passionate  devotion  which 
Montaigne  expresses  for  the  memory  of  La  Boetie, 
or  that  which  impels  Sir  Thomas  Browne  to  say  :  "  I 
never  yet  cast  a  true  affection  on  a  woman  ;  but  I 
have  loved  my  friend  as  I  do  virtue,  my  soul,  my 
God  "  ? 

The  old  Norwich  physician  was,  we  fear,  some- 
what of  a  woman-hater,  but  his  remark  suggests  a 
prominent  reason  for  the  difference  on  this  subject 
between  earUer  ages  and  our  own.  In  classic  times 
especially  the  intense  attachments  between  men 
owed  themselves  very  largely  to  the  inferior  place 
of  woman  in  the  social  system.  The  distinction 
between  man  and  woman  was  one  not  simply  of 
sex  ;   it  was  a  distinction  of  intellectual  and  moral 


212  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

caste.  Woman  was  an  instrument  of  pleasure,  a 
subordinate  factor  of  the  social  life.  The  ideal 
perfection  was  virile.  And  when  to  this  is  added  the 
fact  that  the  attachments  between  men  were  often 
connected,  amongst  the  Greeks  especially,  with  prac- 
tices which  our  morality  decisively  condemns,  we 
have  some  part  of  the  reason,  if  not  all,  for  that 
striking  divergence  of  tone  on  this  theme  between 
the  classic  life  and  literature  and  our  own. 

But  friendship,  if  we  do  not  rhapsodise  upon  it,  is 
yet  for  the  twentieth  century  a  live  enough  theme. 
The  friendships  we  form  and  keep  remain  for  all  of  us 
one  of  the  outstanding  features  in  the  life  history. 
Our  friends  are  a  kind  of  certificate  of  character. 
The  quality  of  an  age  or  a  civilisation  might  be 
measured  by  its  capacity  for  friendship.  If  it 
could  be  said  truthfully  of  our  time  that  we  were 
producing  nothing  better  in  this  line  than  acquaint- 
ance ;  that  the  cash-nexus,  as  Carlyle  called  it,  had 
taken  the  place  of  the  old  devotion,  this,  indeed, 
would  be  enough  to  prove  our  degeneracy.  There 
are  symptoms  in  that  direction  which  we  need  to 
take  note  of.  And  for  our  individual  selves  it  may 
be  wholesome  to  turn  an  eye  for  a  moment  upon 
our  conduct  and  fortunes  in  this  department, 
and  on  the  ideals  we  have  been  pursuing. 

The  best  friendships,  as  a  rule,  are  those  that  begin 
young.  Life's  iron  is  then  fire-hot,  and  we  weld  easily. 
And  the  special  happiness  here  is  that,  properly 
managed,  these  unions  are  often  for  all  the  years. 
In  the  college  common  room  we  stumble  upon  a 
brother  soul  which  vibrates  responsive  to  our  own, 
and  now  after  three  or  four  decades,  and  when  we 


FRIENDS  AND  FRIENDSHIP  213 

are  almost  at  the  end  of  the  journey,  the  music  is 
still  going  on.  Our  careers  have  been  wide  apart, 
our  fortunes  different,  our  meetings  perhaps  in- 
frequent ;  and  yet  the  mere  sense  that  our  friend  is 
yonder,  thinking  his  thoughts  and  doing  his  work, 
is  a  strength  and  a  companionship  to  us.  How 
much  so,  we  shall  know  when  he  has  gone.  A  soul- 
ful intimacy  of  this  kind  acquires  an  ever  better 
flavour  with  the  years.  And  here  it  is  that  a  mere 
self-seeking  ambition  defeats  itself  in  the  search  for 
the  prizes  of  life.  In  the  rush  for  worldly  advance- 
ment, our  pusher,  eager  for  more  brilliant  alliances, 
drops  his  old  friends,  or,  what  is  worse,  adopts 
towards  them  an  attitude  of  condescension.  What 
he  has  gained  in  this  process  we  will  not  inquire. 
We  know  what  he  has  lost.  Such  a  man  has  no 
friends.  To  apply  this  title  to  his  new  entourage 
would  be  too  cynical.  And  the  friendless  man, 
whatever  height  he  has  climbed  to,  is  surely  a  being 
to  be  pitied. 

The  ideal  friendships  come  from  the  knitting  in 
each  other  of  our  nobler  parts.  Fellowship  in 
great  enterprises,  a  common  aspiration  concerning 
life's  deepest  things,  are  their  truest  foundation. 
This  it  is  which  makes  a  genuine  religious  com- 
munion so  uniquely  beautiful  a  thing.  When  men 
can  find  a  real  spiritual  leader,  the  union  of  soul 
between  him  and  them  is  heaven's  own  marriage. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  sphere  of  feeling  so  exquisite. 
No  language,  we  suppose,  could  express  how 
Paul's  companions  felt  towards  him,  and  this  was 
only  a  faint  reflex  of  what  an  earher  generation  felt 
towards  Jesus.     When  a  great  and  withal  gracious 


214  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

soul  appears  in  the  world,  and  begins  to  exhale 
its  strength  and  sweetness,  the  circle  that  forms 
around  it  constitutes  our  heavenliest  image  of 
society.  Such  was  the  group  around  the  noble 
Origen,  which  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  one  of  his 
disciples,  speaks  of  as  "  this  sacred  fatherland." 
Says  he  of  that  fellowship  :  "  The  very  first  day  of 
his  receiving  us  was  in  truth  the  first  day  to  me  and 
most  precious  of  all  days,  since  then  for  the  first 
time  the  true  sun  began  to  rise  upon  me."  Such 
was  the  company  that  gathered  round  Bernard  in  the 
Clairvaux  wilderness  ;  such  the  fellowships  of  the 
"  Brethren  of  the  Common  Life  "  that  grew  up  in 
mediseval  Europe  ;  and  those  later  of  the  Moravians 
and  the  early  Methodists,  and  that  of  the  gifted 
Frenchmen  who  still  later  drew  around  Lamennais  at 
La  Chenaie. 

Fellowship  of  this  sort  might  be  described  quite 
accurately  as  a  seeking  and  finding  of  God  in  each 
other.  For  it  is  the  divine  element  in  us,  the  some- 
thing, as  Browne  puts  it,  "  that  was  before  the 
elements  and  owes  no  homage  to  the  sun,"  that  we 
here  commune  with.  We  love  our  brother  for 
what  he  is  revealing  to  us  of  our  God.  Such  friend- 
ship transcends  all  difference  of  rank  and  station. 
The  feeling  Lord  Shaftesbury  had  for  his  old  Baptist 
nurse,  from  whom,  as  a  child,  he  learned  what  genuine 
religion  meant,  was,  be  sure,  of  a  sort  he  could  not 
offer  to  mere  rank  and  riches.  It  was  a  spiritual 
affinity  which  knit  the  gay  and  wealthy  Alcibiades 
to  the  poor  and  homely  Socrates.  A  real  spiritual 
value  will  indeed  always  and  everywhere  assert 
itself    as    against    any    exterior    one.     A    man    in 


FRIENDS  AND  FRIENDSHIP  215 

England  can,  by  merely  being  rich  enough,  get 
obedience  and  hat-touching  from  his  footman.  But 
he  cannot  get  his  soul  that  way.  The  devotion  of  a 
Caleb  Balderstone  is  not  a  cash  product.  It  was 
not  by  any  cash  process  we  come  by  the  delightful 
picture  which  Izaak  Walton  gives  us  of  Richard 
Hooker  and  his  poor  parish  clerk,  who  "  did  never 
talk  but  with  both  their  hats  on,  or  both  off,  at 
the  same  time."  Wealth  in  this  age  is  doing  its 
hardest  and  its  brutalest  to  win  in  everything 
supremacy,  but  the  soul,  through  all,  mocks  at  its 
endeavours. 

There  is  one  respect  in  which  our  age  in  the  matter 
of  friendship  has  improved  on  earlier  times.  The 
best  minds  to-day,  in  their  regard  for  each  other, 
are  proof  against  very  wide  differences  of  opinion. 
It  is  the  modern  spirit,  and  surely  a  good  one, 
which  shows  in  Huxley's  devotion  to  two  such 
widely  separated  men  as  Darwin  and  Gordon. 
"  He  and  Darwin,"  says  he,  "of  all  the  people  I 
have  known  in  my  hfe,  are  the  two  in  whom  I  have 
found  something  bigger  than  ordinary  humanity — 
an  unequalled  simplicity  and  directness  of  purpose — 
a  subhme  unselfishness."  The  feeUng  here  is  what 
we  get  in  Carlyle  and  Sterling,  who,  at  one  phase  of 
their  career,  as  the  former  put  it,  "  agreed  in  every- 
thing except  opinion."  One  of  the  best  things  we 
know  of  Dupanloup  is  that,  when  his  protege  Renan 
renounced  Cathohcism  and  the  Church,  the  Bishop 
offered  him  money  to  start  on  his  Uterary  career. 
True  souls  can  see  each  other  behind  their  argu- 
ments. We  have,  we  say,  in  these  later  ages  grown 
somewhat  in  this  respect.     We  love  Luther,  but  not 


216  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

because  he  refused  to  shake  hands  with  Zwingli 
over  their  difference  about  the  sacrament  ;  no,  nor 
for  describing  Erasmus,  who  was  a  fine  man  too, 
and  whom  he  had  called  once  his  "  dearest  brother,*' 
as  "  that  venomous  viper  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam." 
He  would  hardly  have  put  it  that  way  had  he  Hved 
in  our  time,  though  it  has  to  be  confessed  that  even 
now  theologians  have  hardly  grown  out  of  the 
habit  of  calling  each  other  names. 

One  could  write  many  chapters  on  the  ethics  of 
friendship.  A  first-class  maxim  is  that  we  should 
offer  our  friends  always  of  our  best  and  never  of  our 
worst.  We  owe  it  to  them  that  we  should  show 
*'  our  Hghted  side."  There  is  so  much  in  HazUtt's 
remark  that  "  a  good  companion  is  emphatically 
the  greatest  benefactor."  E.  L.  Godkin  describes 
the  best  ofiice  of  a  friend  in  what  he  says  of  Lowell : 
"  He  proved  to  me  for  twenty-five  years  a  most 
delightful  friend — for  he  kept  up  a  constant  supply 
of  what  was  most  grateful  to  me,  sympathy  and 
encouragement."  Diderot  has  been  for  a  century 
and  more  a  terrible  fellow  for  the  theologians,  but 
surely  his  faculty  of  friendship  should  cover  a 
multitude  of  his  sins.  Mr.  Morley  does  not  exag- 
gerate when  he  says  of  him  :  "  He  was  content  to 
take  friendship  as  the  right,  the  duty,  or  the  privilege 
of  rendering  services  without  thought  of  requiring 
either  them  or  gratitude  for  them  in  return.  .  .  ,  He 
seemed  to  admit  every  claim  on  his  time,  his  purse, 
and  his  talents."  Men  of  this  sort  puzzle  our 
orthodoxy.  When  we  expel  them  from  rehgion  the 
question  forces  itself — "  From  what  religion,  that  of 
doctrine  or  of  practice,  of  the  head  or  of  the  heart  ?  " 


FRIENDS  AND  FRIENDSHIP  217 

We  have  in  these  later  times  also  made  a  vast 
improvement  on  the  friendships  of  the  ancients,  in 
that  some  of  the  highest  and  purest  are  found  be- 
tween men  and  women.  Christianity  has  here  a 
mixed  record,  but  its  total  effect  has  been  un- 
doubtedly upward.  Against  the  ascetic  fanaticisms 
which  regarded  the  sex,  to  use  a  monkish  phrase, 
as  "  the  gate  of  hell,"  we  have  to  set,  in  those  very 
times,  the  noble  relations  of  Chrysostom  with 
Olympias,  and  Jerome  with  Paula,  and  later  on  of 
Dante  with  his  Beatrice  and  Petrarch  with  his  Laura. 
From  the  beginning,  indeed,  the  genuine  Christian 
note  was  a  long  advance  on  the  current  paganism. 
In  the  third  century  Clement  of  Alexandria  offers  a 
doctrine  of  man  and  woman  which  is  not  out  of 
date  to-day.  "  For  if  the  God  of  both  is  one, 
the  Master  of  both  is  one  also  ;  one  Church,  one 
temperance,  one  modesty.  Their  food  is  common, 
marriage  is  an  equal  yoke  ;  respiration,  sight,  hear- 
ing, knowledge,  hope,  obedience,  love — all  are 
ahke."  It  would  be  hard  to-day  to  meet  a  man  of 
real  value  who  would  not  be  wilHng  to  acknowledge 
that  much  of  his  best  inspiration,  as  well  as  the 
most  helpful  sympathy,  has  come  from  women. 
More  and  more  the  fellowship  of  souls  overleaps 
the  sex  barriers. 

Our  inner  progress  could  be  accurately  measured 
by  the  range  and  quality  of  our  friendship.  As  the 
quaUty  heightens  the  range  extends.  "  Qui  Deum 
amat,  amat  omnes,^^  as  Leibnitz  says.  We  sympathise 
with  that  sajdng  of  St.  Teresa  about  the  demons  : 
"  How  unhappy — they  do  not  love  !  "  And  in  lov- 
ing men  we  learn,  as  Fenelon  said  to  Destouches, 


218  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

"  to  expect  little  from  them."  Why,  mdeed, 
should  you  look  for  this  and  the  other  in  return  ? 
Is  not  the  pure  joy  of  loving  and  serving  reward 
enough  in  itself  ?  As  you  travel  along  this  line 
it  becomes  more  and  more  difficult  to  hate.  We 
hardly  need  Augustine's  reminder  :  "  Most  often 
when  you  think  you  are  hating  an  enemy,  you  are 
hating  your  brother  without  knowing  it."  Friend- 
ship of  this  order,  fed  and  inspired  from  the  highest 
sources,  beginning  its  action  in  the  private  circle  of 
those  nearest  us,  spreads  and  spreads  till  it  en- 
compasses the  world.  And  it  will  be  the  growth  of 
this  power,  more  than  the  achievements  of  science 
or  the  harnessing  of  the  world's  physical  forces,  that 
will  ultimately  bring  to  our  race  its  age  of  gold. 


XXIV 

On   Being  There 

Thereness  is  a  theme  which,  when  we  come    to 

think  of  it,  is  full  of  philosophy  and  full  of  morals. 

Of  imagination  and  poetry  also.     Some  of  us,  as 

we  lie  awake  at  nights,  are  pursued  with  the  thought 

of  being  there  ;    in  places  we  have  dreamed  of — 

the  uttermost  deeps  of  ocean,   the  centre  of  the 

Sahara,    the  awful  solitude  of  inter-stellar  spaces. 

It  is  so  difficult  for  us  to  reaUse,  in  our  homely  life 

of  the  city  or  the  country  parish,  that  just  as  actual 

as  the  shop  across  the  road  is,  at  this  moment, 

the  flaming  centre  of  the  sun  or  the  wastes  of  the 

polar  realm — "  where  no  man  comes,  or  hath  come 

since  the  making  of  the  world."     And  these  things 

have  been  there  through  the  ages  before  history, 

before  man,  before  time.     And  someone  has  always 

been  there,   in  actual  contact  with  and  knowledge 

of  them.     For  it  is  an  axiom  of  philosophy  that 

there  is  no  reality  apart  from  spirit.     There  could 

be    no  whiteness,    no   colour,   no   extension  even, 

were   there   no   consciousness   to   apprehend   these 

things. 

When  we  come  from  the  visible  to  the  invisible 
we  are  shut  up  also  to  the  same  belief— the  belief 

219 


220  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

in  an  omnipresent  Thereness  in  touch  with  every 
finite  mind.  There  could  be  no  community  of 
thinking,  apart  from  a  basis  of  thought  which  is 
universal,  a  Supreme  Thinker  who  gives  the  law  by 
which  all  intellects  operate.  How  curious  that  this 
behef  in  Omnipresent  Mind,  which  to-day  is  the 
starting-point  of  a  spiritual  philosophy,  should  have 
been  made  one  of  the  subjects  of  scornful  reproach 
against  the  early  Christians  !  The  heathen  writer 
Csecihus  says  of  them  :  "  What  monstrous,  what 
portentous  notions  do  they  fabricate  !  That  that 
God  of  theirs,  whom  they  can  neither  show  nor  see, 
should  be  inquiring  diligently  into  the  characters, 
acts,  nay,  the  words  and  secret  thoughts  of  all 
men  !  "  The  sneer  to  us  seems  singularly  misplaced. 
The  ignorance  would  appear  to  be  on  the  other  side. 
We  have  begun  with  the  transcendental.  But 
the  topic  is  not  less  fruitful  when  we  turn  it  into 
homelier  channels.  Deahng  with  actual  human 
Hfe,  we  find  a  whole  morality  wrapped  up  in  the 
business  of  being  there.  Our  quahty  of  manhood, 
our  worth  to  society,  our  prospects  of  success  in  the 
world,  could  all  be  reckoned  up  in  terms  of  thereness. 
Society  is  based  on  the  faith  of  finding  each  one  of 
us,  from  day  to  day,  in  liis  place.  What  a  trust  it 
is  !  The  City  man  takes  his  morning  train  to  town, 
chatting  as  he  travels  with  his  friend,  or  conning  the 
latest  news.  And  every  day  his  life  depends  on 
yonder  grimy  brother  on  the  engine  plate,  or  this 
other  in  the  signal-box,  being  not  only  there,  but 
all  there,  their  skill  and  attention  wholly  given  to 
the  duty  they  are  upon.  In  the  higher  ranges  of 
service  we  see  how  genius  is  the  faculty  of  being  in 


ON  BEING  THERE  221 

the  right  spot  at  the  right  time  ;  to  be,  as  Wesley 
used  to  say,  not  where  you  are  wanted,  but  "where 
you  are  wanted  most."  Talent  is  so  largely  the 
faculty  of  applying  your  power  at  just  that  point 
of  the  lever  where  it  will  get  the  greatest  purchase. 
That  is  how  great  commanders  win  their  victories. 
They  divine  the  critical  spot  and  put  their  whole 
self  into  that.  A  Napoleon,  a  Nelson,  are  oftenest 
where  the  enemy  least  want  them  and  least  expect 
them.  Carlyle  in  his  "  Cromwell,"  giving  account 
of  the  battle  of  Preston,  says  : — "  The  Duke  (of 
Hamilton),  it  will  be  seen,  marches  in  extreme  loose 
order  ;  vanguard  and  rearguard  being  far  apart — 
and  a  Cromwell  attending  liim  in  flank !  "  It 
is  always  so.  The  conqueror  wins  by  being  there 
The  failures,  whether  of  clerk  in  the  warehouse  or 
the  head  of  an  army  in  the  field,  are  an  affair  of 
absence — of  body,  mind,  or  both — at  the  time  and 
place  where  they  are  needed. 

There  are,  on  this  head,  disquieting  reports 
concerning  the  young  man  of  to-day.  It  is  rumoured 
that  his  interests  are  somewhat  astray.  The  post 
at  present  assigned  him  in  the  world's  work  is  a 
post  vacant  of  his  mind  and  heart.  To  do  not  his 
best  but  his  least  in  it,  and  to  get  away  from  it  at  the 
earliest  possible  to  idle  and  expensive  pleasures,  are 
said  to  be  his  ruHng  ideas.  Or  the  work,  he  thinks, 
is  not  good  enough  for  him,  and  he  scamps  it  while 
dreaming  of  the  loftier  objects  of  his  ambition. 
The  man  with  stuff  in  him  does  not  argue  in  this 
way.  What  if  his  present  occupation  is  not  the 
final  or  highest  he  is  to  reach  !  That  wiU  not 
prevent  him  from  putting  his  back  into  this  which 


222  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

is  before  him.  Charles  Dickens  is  not  ess  pains- 
taking as  reporter,  that  he  is  by-and-by  to  be  king 
of  romance.  "  Here  and  now  is  my  America," 
should  be  the  motto  for  us  all.  Actually  where 
we  are  is  the  battleground  where  we  are  to  play  the 
man.  To  be  there  and  all  there,  to  put  our  utmost 
soul  into  the  job  in  hand,  is  the  way  of  success.  A 
fig  for  the  student  who  has  perpetually  to  be  chasing 
his  thoughts  back  to  his  theme  !  You  will  do  no 
good  till  you  know  how  to  be  absorbed.  We  love 
that  story  of  the  mathematician  who  began  to 
chalk  some  formulae  on  the  back  of  a  carriage  in  the 
street,  and  was  then  astonished  to  find  his  blackboard 
moving  away  from  him  !  His  concentration  was 
here  undoubtedly  a  little  overdone,  but  it  was  this 
that  had  made  him  a  mathematician.  Here  and 
now !  For  heaven's  sake  do  not  sacrifice  your 
present  for  any  possible  future.  Let  this  be  the 
best  there  is  for  you,  whatever  may  come  after. 
"  Be  perfect  in  regard  to  what  is  here  and  now." 
Remember  always,  as  Jean  Paul  has  it,  that  "  this 
future  is  nothing  but  a  coming  present,  and  the 
present  which  thou  despisest  was  once  a  future  wliich 
thou  desiredst."  Is  yours  a  rough  and  uncouth 
present  ?  Yet  Confucius  could  say  :  "  With  coarse 
rice  to  eat,  with  water  to  drink,  and  my  bended  arm 
for  a  pillow,  I  still  have  joy  in  the  midst  of  these 
things." 

It  is  one  of  the  special  gifts  of  our  time — an 
evidence  of  the  continuous  growth  of  the  human 
spirit — that  we  are  learning  to  "be  there  "  in 
another  sense.  The  trained  scientific  imagination, 
which  enables  us  to  reproduce  the  past  as  it  actually 


ON  BEING  THERE  223 

was,  and  not  as  mythology  and  legend  have  created 
it  for  us,  is  to-day  revolutionising  both  history  and 
theology.  The  West  is  grappling  in  earnest  with 
the  problems  which  the  East  has  set  it  in  morals  and 
religion.  A  trained  and  sober  criticism  is  dissipating 
the  fog  in  which  the  Oriental  mind  had  steeped  the 
original  Christian  facts,  and  showing  them  to  us  in 
the  clear  atmosphere  of  reaUsm.  Modern  Christians 
are  in  consequence  becoming  primitive  Christians. 
They  are  beholding  Christ  as  the  first  disciples 
beheld  Him,  and  loving  Him  as  they  did,  only  with 
a  better  trained  understanding. 

And  concurrently  with  this  mental  growth  there 
has  been  a  growth  of  the  soul  which,  in  yet  another 
direction,  opens  new  possibilities  of  "  being  there." 
We  are  reaching  the  secret  of  moral  sympathy, 
which  permits  us  to  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of 
the  other  man.  When  the  lesson  has  been  fully 
learned,  or  even  on  any  large  scale  in  the  world, 
what  a  revolution  we  shall  have  !  It  is  only  as  we 
look  at  our  brother  from  the  outside  that  we  can 
cherish  feelings  of  enmity  towards  him.  When 
once  we  have  reached  the  point  of  feehng  him,  as  it 
were,  from  the  inside,  when  we  can  taste  his  bitter- 
ness and  chagrin  as  though  it  were  our  own,  the 
whole  shameful  joy  at  his  humiUation  and  downfall 
will  have  become  impossible  to  us.  He,  too,  then, 
is  a  companion  soul,  whose  heavy  burden  and  whose 
hard  fight  make  our  thought  about  him  one  only 
of  sympathy  and  desire  to  aid  ! 

The  sense  of  "  being  there  "  is  entering  very 
deeply  to-day  into  our  religious  thought.  It  is, 
for  instance,   revising   our  whole   view   as   to   the 


224  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

principle  and  method  of  punishment.  Here,  surely, 
was  need  of  revision.  According  to  the  older  idea 
the  myriads  of  the  lost  were  handed  over  to  Satan, 
he  being  regarded  as  worst  in  this  universe,  to  be 
tortured  according  to  his  fiendish  caprice.  What 
a  gaol  theory  this  !  The  Best  of  Beings  to  entrust 
His  creatures  to  the  worst  !  To-day  our  prison 
governors  are  required  above  all  things  to  be  men 
of  character  and  humanity.  We  do  not  put  our 
criminals  in  charge  of  our  chief  criminal.  Whatever 
hells  the  universe  contains  are  governed,  be  sure, 
by  God,  not  the  devil.  He  is  there  by  virtue  of 
His  omnipresence.  And  He  can  be  there  in  no 
other  character  than  that  which  forms  His  essence, 
the  character  of  Perfect  Love.  This  in  no  degree 
minimises  sin  nor  punishment,  but  it  leaves  both 
in  the  hands  of  the  All  Perfect,  not  in  those  of  the 
all  damnable. 

To  come  back  to  the  present  and  the  human. 
Most  people,  especially  the  young,  are  intent  on 
some  sort  of  "  getting  there."  On  every  hand 
heights  rise  above  us  kindling  desire  to  cHmb  them. 
And  the  ambition  is  no  bad  thing  in  its  way ; 
properly  handed,  one  of  our  best  things.  It  is  one 
of  our  highest  titles  that  we  are  chmbers.  The 
question  is  as  to  the  kind  of  summits  we  are  after, 
and  what  we  expect  when  we  reach  them.  One 
matter  to  be  settled  with  ourselves  at  the  start  is 
that  whatever  outside  elevation  we  attain,  whatever 
accumulations  we  make,  will  have  no  effect  whatever 
in  satisfying  us.  At  the  topmost  peak  you  are  at 
the  work  of  wishing  just  as  much  as  when  you  were 
at  the  bottom.     And  to  gain  the  thing  you  wanted 


ON  BEING  THERE  225 

is  often  enough  to  lose  it.  Possession  is  an  impish 
Puck  that  is  likely  enough  to  make  a  fool  of  you. 
You  grasp  your  treasure  to  see  it  come  to  pieces 
in  your  hand.  Says  Greville  in  his  Memoirs  :  "  In 
the  course  of  three  weeks  I  have  attained  the  three 
things  I  have  most  desired  in  the  world  for  years 
past,  and  upon  the  whole  I  do  not  feel  that  my 
happiness  is  at  all  increased." 

Is  Ufe,  then,  a  cheat  ?     Only  a  cynic  would  say 
so.     Its  business  is  to  train  us  to  the  right  direction 
in  our  climbing,  to  show  us  the  proper  "  there  "  to  be 
reached.     And  here  comes  in  the  supreme  office  of 
rehgion.     It  reveals  to  us  a  spiritual  world  whose 
"  here  "   and   "  there  "   have   no   connection  with 
space,  yet  are  the  surest  and  most  abiding  of  realities. 
The  progress  towards  these  altitudes  is  not  measured 
in  miles,  nor  can  it  be  promoted  by  the  most  ingeni- 
ous of  mechanical  engineering.     There  are  no  tickets 
to  be  purchased  on  this  line  ;    no  saloon  carriages  ; 
it    is    all    plain    tramping.     In    this    progress    the 
millionaire  is  no  better  off  than  the  artisan.     He 
is,  in  fact,  handicapped  by  the  weight  he  carries. 
The  travellers,  unlike  those  others,  have  no  mis- 
givings as  to  the  kind  of  region  they  are  entering, 
or  as  to  the  satisfactions  it  offers.     As  the  steps 
mount  the  air  becomes  ever  purer,  the  view  more 
majestic,  the  sense  of  innermost  wellness  the  more 
pronounced.     One    is    continually    happening    on 
great  moments,  such  as  that  which  Lowell  describes 
when  the  room  he  was  in  seemed  filled  with  the 
presence  of  God  ;  or  that  of  the  American  physician, 
Dr.    Bucke,    of    whom    Professor    James    speaks, 
who  in  a  kind  of  prophetic  ecstasy  "  saw  that  the 

15 


226  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

universe  is  not  composed  of  dead  matter,  but  is,  on 
the  contrary  a  living  Presence  ;  I  became  conscious 
in  myself  of  eternal  life." 

Getting  there — to  this  "  there  " — ^is  plainly  worth 
the  trouble.  There  is  absolutely  no  doubt  as  to 
the  existence  of  the  region,  and  none  either  as  to 
its  accessibility.  You  may  deny  a  future  life,  or 
anything  else  you  choose.  But  when  it  comes  to 
the  soul's  Promised  Land,  high  up,  invisible,  you 
may  spare  the  breath  of  negation,  for  there  are 
people  who  are  living  in  it.  And  being  there  they 
have  a  shrewd  suspicion,  born  not  of  the  mind's 
logic,  but  of  an  experience  so  much  deeper,  that 
this  region  is  an  eternal  one,  and  their  relation  to  it 
eternal.  Let  us  conclude  with  a  word  on  this 
point  of  Renan,  where,  speaking  of  the  Port  Royalists 
he  says  :  "  Sister  Marie-Claire,  exclaiming  '  Victory, 
Victory,'  with  her  last  breath  .  .  .  proved  that 
man  by  his  will  creates  a  force  the  law  of  which 
is  not  the  law  of  the  flesh  :  she  set  forth  the  nature 
of  spirit  by  an  argument  superior  to  all  those  of 
Descartes,  and  in  showing  us  the  soul  quitting  the 
body,  as  a  ripe  fruit  drops  from  its  stalk,  she  taught 
us  not  to  pronounce  too  lightly  on  the  limits  of  its 
destiny." 


XXV 
The    Mind's    Adjustments 

There  are  two  master  characteristics  of  the  mind, 
the  study  of  which,  properly  conducted,  may  carry 
us  far.  These  are  an  infinite  variabiUty  combined 
with  a  not  less  striking  underlying  unity. 
There  is  no  better  illustration  of  what  we 
mean  than  the  human  face,  where  you  have  at 
every  moment  a  new  expression,  but  beneath  all  a 
central  identity  which  we  never  mistake.  There 
are,  it  is  true,  both  faces  and  souls  where  mobility 
seems  the  leading  feature.  Think  of  the  play  of 
expression  in  a  Garrick  !  Diderot  says  that  he 
once  saw  him  "  pass  his  head  between  two  folding 
doors,  and  in  the  space  of  a  few  seconds  his  face 
went  successively  from  mad  joy  to  moderate  joy, 
from  that  to  tranquility,  from  tranquility  to  surprise, 
from  surprise  to  astonishment,  from  astonishment 
to  gloom,  from  gloom  to  utter  dejection,  from 
dejection  to  fear,  from  fear  to  horror,  from  horror  to 
despair,  and  then  reascend  from  this  lowest  degree  to 
the  point  whence  he  had  started."  And  yet,  through 
all  contortions  and  all  disguises,  the  Garrick  face, 
like  the  Garrick  soul,  was  one,  and  could  change  into 
rio  other, 


228  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

As  in  the  body  so  in  the  mind  nothing  is  more 
marvellous  than  this  play  of  change  round  certain 
immovable  points.  No  one  moment  of  conscious- 
ness is  the  same  as  another.  There  is  here  a  perpetual 
movement,  a  movement  largely  outside  our  own 
volition,  an  incessant  whirl  of  pulsations  in  the 
primordial  mind-stuff.  Where  our  consciousness 
comes  from,  how  it  is  related  to  the  material  con- 
ditions, by  what  hidden  machinery  it  evolves  its 
phenomena  of  sensation  and  thought,  all  this  is  to 
us  an  unfathomable  mystery.  We  are  the  spectators 
rather  than  the  producers  of  its  effects.  The  largest 
part  of  what  we  call  ourself  is  as  unknown  to  us  as 
the  other  side  of  the  moon. 

What  we  know  is  that  this  hidden  macliinery 
is  incessantly  at  work  producing  one  kind  of  result — 
namely,  a  perfect  adjustment  between  ourselves  and 
the  outside  world.  It  has  at  every  moment  to 
solve  a  new  equation.  At  every  moment  that  cause 
celehre,  "  Ourselves  v.  the  Universe,"  takes  on  a 
new  form,  a  form  which  requires  a  fresh  arrangement 
of  the  constituents.  The  problem  is,  out  of  this 
hurly-burly  within  and  without,  to  construct  a 
working  equilibrium,  and  it  is  wonderful  to  see  how 
the  thing  is  done.  The  consciousness  of  a  man  who 
has  lived  sixty  years  in  the  world  has  encountered 
countless  milhons  of  these  puzzles,  and  has  solved 
them  all.  Every  event  of  his  life,  trivial,  critical, 
solemn,  ludicrous,  joyous,  tragic,  has  received  in 
that  interior,  subconscious  workshop  its  special 
handUng.  To  each  has  been  fixed  with  infalHble 
certainty  the  appropriate  sensation.  His  wedding- 
day,  the  death  of  his  best-beloved,   his  greatest 


THE  MIND'S  ADJUSTMENTS  229 

success,  his  most  disastrous  failure,  have  witnessed  in 
turn  a  new  mental  adjustment,  in  rigid  correspond- 
ence with  the  fact.  In  addition  to  these  separate 
events  there  have  been  large  groupings  of  experi- 
ence that  have  been  managed  with  a  similar  precision. 
The  immense  transitions  represented  in  the  passage 
from  youth  to  manhood  and  from  manhood  to  old 
age  ;  the  opening  of  new  horizons,  the  decay  or 
destruction  of  earlier  beliefs  ;  the  entry  upon  totally 
fresh  circumstances  or  modes  of  living — all  these 
interior  operation'^',  enormously  complicated,  vast 
in  their  range  and  results,  are  carried  out,  one  may 
say,  without  a  break  or  a  hitch.  There  are  in  the 
process  oscillations,  disturbances,  inner  storms  and 
conflicts,  but  these  are  part  of  the  movement, 
contributors  to  the  fore-ordained  result.  Through 
all,  in  a  normal  career,  the  mind  retains  its  equili- 
brium ;  it  always  solves  its  problem. 
^-  Nothing  is  more  interesting,  or  more  helpful  to 
faith,  than  to  observe  these  adjustments  in  face  of 
the  graver  crises.  The  cosmic  system  to  which 
man  has  been  introduced  is  not  a  coddhng  system. 
His  world  is  an  arena  where  he  meets  at  every  point 
with  calls  upon  his  strength  and  his  courage.  The 
system  is  a  conscription,  in  which  every  name  is 
enrolled  and  no  shirking  allowed.  Every  mother's 
son  and  daughter  of  us  has  extremities  to  face — 
with  death  at  the  end  and  whatsoever  may  lie 
beyond.  It  is  an  excellent  training  ground  for 
heroes  and  the  worst  of  worlds  for  cowards.  Yet, 
as  a  French  writer  puts  it,  "  this  obscure  universe  evi- 
dently means  kindly  by  us."  It  bids  us  be  of  good 
cheer.     We  are  in  a  rough  scene,  but  the  mind  is 


230  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

constructed  to  meet  its  roughness.  It  is  in  the 
direr  circumstances,  indeed,  that  we  best  see  the 
wonder  of  its  adjustments.  A  thoughtful  man 
values  his  harshest  experiences  for  the  insight 
they  have  given  him  into  life's  secret  benignanc}^ 
The  inside  of  a  catastrophe  he  has  found  to  be  so 
different  from  its  outer  appearance.  Have  any  of 
our  readers  been  face  to  face  with  the  prospect  of 
an  immediate  violent  death  ?  The  sensation  is  quite 
other  than  timidity  would  have  imagined.  The 
present  writer  remembers  sHpping  on  a  rock  surface 
in  the  Alps,  and  rolling  within  a  few  feet  of  the  abyss. 
Death  seemed  certain,  but  the  mental  condition 
was  not  even  painful.  Women  will  receive  their 
death  sentence  from  a  specialist  in  Harley  Street, 
and  front  it  with  less  disturbance  than  they  have 
had  from  a  quarrel  with  the  cook.  Pessimists 
would  do  well  to  read,  on  this  head,  some  of  our 
authentic  martyrology.  Let  them  study,  for  in- 
stance, the  story  of  Perpetua,  one  of  the  North 
African  martyrs  in  the  Decian  persecution,  as  given  in 
her  own  words.  Apart  from  theology  let  them  take  it 
as  a  study  in  mental  conditions.  Says  she,  "  The 
gaol  became  to  me  suddenly  a  palace,  so  that  I 
liked  to  be  there  better  than  anywhere  else." 
She  writes  up  her  diary  to  the  night  before  being 
delivered  to  the  wild  beasts.  "  This  is  what  I 
have  done  up  to  the  day  before  the  sports  ;  how 
the  sports  themselves  will  go,  let  some  one  else 
write  if  he  pleases."  This  delightful  young  soul  is 
positively  gay  at  her  prospect,  gay  as  the  veteran 
More,  who,  consoled  by  the  same  religion,  uttered  his 
merry  jest  as  he  laid  his  white  head  upon  the  block. 


THE  MIND'S  ADJUSTMENTS  231 

It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  go  to  the  tragic 
element  in  life  for  proofs  of  our  doctrine.     Some 
of    the    most    striking    illustrations    lie    elsewhere. 
History    shows    us    every    conceivable    variety    of 
circumstance,  and  everywhere  the  mind's  wonder- 
ful adaptations  under  them.     We  are  not  in  love 
with  asceticism,  yeb  we  are  glad  the  world  has  had  its 
ascetics,  if  only  to  reveal   the  thousand  different 
happinesses  it  contains.  Bernard  and  Francis,  follow- 
ing poverty  on  her  stoniest  ways,  struck  there  on  a 
mental  state  which  they  preferred  to  all  others.     The 
mechanic,  the  factory  worker,  engaged  in  a  monoton- 
ous and  seemingly  soulless  occupation,  finds  precisely 
in  that  fact  a  mental  freedom  which  many  a  humble 
toiler  has  turned  to  richest  uses.     The  Methodist 
collier  composes   his   sermon  while   he   drives   his 
pick  ;    the  cobbler  thinks  his  way  through  pohtics 
and    rehgion    as    he    sews    and    hammers.     Even 
madness  has  its  pecuHar  joy.     Do  we  not  remember 
that  letter  of  Lamb  to  Coleridge  ?     "  Dream  not, 
Coleridge,   of  having  tasted  all  the  grandeur  and 
wildness  of  fancy  till  you  have  gone  mad  !  "     There 
is  no  condition,  indeed,  in  which  the  mind  does  not 
labour,  and  with  a  certain  success,  to  produce  its 
balance.   Men,  under  pressure  of  one  kind  or  another, 
have  yielded  assent  to  the  most  horrible  doctrines, 
and  yet  have  lived  happily.     The  reason  is  that 
their  inner  consciousness  has  always  elaborated  for 
itself  a  place  of  refuge.     Said  Dr.  Johnson  to^Bos- 
well  on  the  subject  of  Eternal  Punishment  :    "  Sir, 
some  of  the  texts  of  Scripture  on  this  subject  are 
indeed  strong,  but  they  may  admit  of  a  mitigated 
interpretation."     Exactly.     No  man  takes  his  soup 


232  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

as  hot  as  it  is  cooked.  Men  may  subscribe  the 
most  terrific  creeds  and  fancy  they  beheve  them.  But 
their  innermost  mind  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
extremes,  and  calmly  works  on  the  hypothesis  that 
the  Universe  is  reasonable. 

And  this  brings  us  to  an  aspect  of  the  theme  which 
belongs  peculiarly  to  our  own  day.  The  position 
which  now  overshadows  all  others  for  thoughtful 
men  is  the  profound  change  which  is  working  in 
the  region  of  our  most  momentous  behefs.  On  the 
questions  of  man's  origin  and  destiny,  of  revelation, 
of  the  interpretation  of  the  Christian  facts,  we  are 
in  sight  of  nothing  less  than  a  revolution.  The 
best  minds  are  already  fully  occupied  with  the 
movement ;  and  what  fills  the  best  minds  is,  by  an 
inevitable  law,  certain  within  a  given  time  to 
permeate  the  entire  community.  The  beams  that 
at  first  gild  the  topmost  peaks  will,  later  on,  give 
dayhght  to  the  valleys.  Cautious  and  timid  souls 
are  aghast  at  the  signs.  They  imagine  that  if  a  given 
view  is  taken  from  them  the  privation  will  work 
death  to  the  soul.  It  is  consoling  here,  however,  to 
note  Nature's  way  of  working  in  these  matters,  to 
note  what  actually  happens.  The  process  man  is 
now  going  through  is  no  new  one.  All  through  the 
ages  he  has  been  passing  from  one  phase  of  beUef  to 
another.  And  always  when  he  is  summoned  to 
advance,  he  finds  the  way  prepared  for  him.  Steps 
have  been  cut  for  him  in  the  snow  ;  the  precipices 
have  been  barricaded.  It  is  the  subconscious  within 
him,  rather  than  his  own  noisy  argumentation,  that 
has  prepared  his  solutions.  The  great  controversies, 
indeed,  seem  never  to  be  settled  by  argument.     We 


THE  MIND'S  ADJUSTMENTS  233 

do  not  so  much  refute  error  as  grow  out  of  it.  What 
to  us  now  are  the  mediaeval  theories  of  the  Atone- 
ment, the  contests  of  Nominahsts  and  ReaUsts,  the 
five  points  of  the  Calvinist-Arminian  controversy  ? 
These  battles  are  over  not  because  this  or  that  side 
was  declared  victor,  but  because  the  great  human  in- 
terests have  shifted  their  ground.  Nature,  in  con- 
ducting her  child, keeps  open  his  communications  not 
only  with  the  past,  but  also  with  the  future.  Man's 
present  views  are  provisions  on  the  way.  And  the 
supply  has  perpetually  to  be  renewed.  It  is  a 
wilderness-manna  which  will  not  keep  sweet  in 
perpetuity. 

And  yet,  however  swift  and  far  our  thought  may 
run  in  this  direction,  it  meets  always  with  a  limita- 
tion. Recurring  to  our  opening  illustration,  the 
greatest  mobility  of  feature  never  destroys  the 
face's  unity.  And  the  mind's  adaptability,  carried 
to  the  utmost  lengths,  serves  only,  we  discover,  in 
the  end  to  reveal  more  vividly  the  ultimate  oneness 
both  of  its  character  and  its  aim.  The  soul  cannot 
be  contorted  to  the  extent  of  denying  itself  ;  it 
cannot  amid  all  its  seeming  divagations  be  kept 
permanently  out  of  its  appointed  road.  It  is  when 
we  study  this  side  of  it  that,  amid  the  immense 
perturbations  of  our  time,  we  find  our  point  of 
security  and  of  rest.  Man  may  pursue  his  specula- 
tions to  the  utmost  extremes,  but  his  soul,  Uke 
the  actor's  face  when  the  grimace  is  over,  resumes 
its  natural  expression.  There  have,  for  instance, 
been  eras  of  history  when  men,  led  by  one 
particular  impulse,  or  pursuing  one  particular 
line  of  thought,  have  cut  themselves  loose  from 


234  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

religion.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the  French 
Encyclopaedists  led  their  countrymen  into  materialis- 
tic Atheism.  Baron  d'Holbach,  with  his  "  System  of 
Nature."  proved  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  man 
was  a  machine,  his  mind  a  function  of  the  body,  that 
death  ended  all,  that  religion  was  an  invention  of 
the  priests,  that  the  universe  arose  from  the  clash  of 
atoms,  that  God,  freedom  and  immortality  were 
scientific  impossibilities.  And  the  reasoning,  if  we 
keep  to  his  one  particular  line,  is  not  easy  to  answer. 
What  is  the  answer  ?  Here,  in  considering  the 
matter,  we  see  the  mind's  method  of  adjustment. 
The  reply  lies,  not  in  the  speculative  reason,  but  in 
something  so  much  deeper.  When  Voltaire,  while 
a  discussion  on  these  subjects  was  going  on,  turned 
the  servants  out  of  the  room,  lest,  as  he  said,  they 
should  imbibe  these  views  and  then  murder  their 
masters,  he  touched  in  his  satirical  way  the  fringe 
of  the  reply.  Dr.  Johnson,  declaring  that,  as  to 
moral  freedom,  all  the  argument  was  against  it  but 
all  experience  for  it,  was  still  nearer  the  mark.  But  it 
was  reserved  for  Kant  to  reach  the  nerve  of  the 
matter  when,  in  his  "  Practical  Reason,"  after 
admitting  all  the  force  of  the  logical  argument, 
he  refounded  our  doctrine  of  God,  Immortality  and 
Freedom  on  the  soul's  inward  necessities.  He  put 
into  logical  form  the  truth  that  the  heart's  reasons 
are  deeper  than  those  of  the  intellect.  It  is  the  heart 
which  affirms  the  spiritual  world,  which  affirms  the 
Eternal  Perfection,  which  affirms  man's  portion  in 
that  world,  and  in  that  Perfection.  We  accept 
its  verdict,  believing  that  in  and  behind  it  is  a 
reason  deeper  than  our  syllogism. 


THE  MIND'S  ADJUSTMENTS  235 

In  a  word,  Atheism  is  refuted  by  the  contents  of 
the  soul.  The  soul's  argument  is  in  its  own  aspira- 
tion and  ceaseless  desire.  It  has  a  scale  of  values, 
and  it  knows  that  purity,  love,  reverence,  fideUty,  are 
life's  highest  things,  and  that  these,  because  they 
are  highest,  must  be  truest.  It  knows  that  their 
existence  in  man  in  the  germ  means  their  existence 
elsewhere  in  fulness.  Our  proof  of  God  is  that  the 
soul  is  what  it  is. 

And  thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  when  science  and 
philosophy  have  said  their  last  word,  the  mind's 
final  adjustment  will  be  a  religious  adjustment. 
Here,  and  nowhere  else,  does  it  find  refuge  against 
the  infinite  mutations  of  time  and  the  world. 
It  is  an  open  secret  known  to  all  pure  souls.  The 
author  of  the  "  Imitation  "  has  put  it  for  us  with  his 
own  simple  beauty  :  "  When  a  man  cometh  to  that 
estate  that  he  seeketh  not  his  comfort  from  any 
creature,  then  first  doth  God  begin  to  be  altogether 
sweet  to  him.  Then  shall  he  be  contented  with 
whatever  doth  befall  him  in  this  world,  then  shall 
he  neither  rejoice  in  great  matters,  nor  be  sorrowful 
in  small,  but  entirely  and  confidently  he  committeth 
himself  to  God,  who  is  unto  him  all  in  all." 


XXVI 
Of    the    Incomplete 

There  are  a  thousand  ways  of  looking  at  life,  a 
thousand  different  ideas  which  you  may  severally 
use  as  keys  to  its  interpretation.  And  the  keys  will 
each  of  them  open  some  doors,  though  it  is  the 
height  of  folly  to  suppose  they  will  open  all.  There 
is,  for  instance,  our  sense  of  the  incomplete — a 
foundation  principle  on  which  a  whole  philosophy 
and  at  least  half  a  theology  could  be  safely  reared. 
We  aspire  here  to  no  such  pretentious  piece  of 
architecture  ;  but  it  may  be  worth  while  to  cast  a 
glance  at  the  kind  of  material  that  would  be  available 
for  such  a  structure. 

What,  in  the  first  place,  do  we  mean  by  our  term  ? 
If  we  saw  a  man  minus  his  head  we  should  have  no 
doubt  about  pronouncing  him  incomplete.  But 
what  if  he  had  his  head,  and  the  whole  apparatus 
of  arms  and  legs,  of  bodily  and  mental  faculty  ?  Is 
he  complete  then  ?  That  raises  our  whole  question, 
a  question  the  answers  to  which,  before  we  have  done 
with  them,  seem  hkely  to  carry  us  far.  There  is,  as 
is  suggested  by  our  headless  man,  an  incompleteness 
that  stares  us  in  the  face,  glaringly  perceptible  to 
us  all.     Our  man  must  have  this  particular  outfit 

2GC 


OF  THE  INCOMPLETE  237 

of  head,  limbs  and  what  else  to  pass  muster ; 
though  why  a  thinking  soul  should  need  such  a 
machinery  may  well  give  us  pause.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  universe  the  fashion  in  organisms  may 
be  quite  other.  Do  we  not  all  feel  at  times  Hke 
Joubert,  of  whom  it  was  said,  that  he  had  the  air 
of  a  soul  which  had  by  chance  encountered  a  body, 
and  was  doing  the  best  he  could  with  it  ? 

We  will  grant,  however,  that  on  this  planet  and 
under  present  circumstances,  there  is  a  completeness 
of  bodily  structure  which  is  rigorously  demanded  in 
our  notion  of  a  man.  Yet  about  this  fully  equipped 
human  of  ours,  possessed  of  his  whole  complement 
of  body  and  mind,  the  next  thing  that  impresses  us 
is  his  entire  inc  ompleteness .  Want ,  and  the  c onstant 
sense  of  it,  form  his  peculium,  his  distinguishing  note. 
His  bodily  Ufe  is  one  long  demand.  At  every 
moment  his  lungs  cry  for  air,  his  eye  for  light,  his 
ear  for  sound.  His  appetites  are  bold  beggars 
which  knock  constantly  at  a  hundred  doors.  Then 
behind  the  body  he  the  pondering  mind,  the  aspiring 
soul,  the  craving  heart.  When  we  think  of  it  our 
man  cannot,  by  the  very  nature  of  him,  reach  the 
status  of  a  finished  product,  for  the  things  which 
are  added  to  him  only  increase  his  desire  and 
capacity  of  reception.  Here,  evidently,  is  a  being 
always  in  the  making.  He  stands  not  for  finality, 
but  for  movement.  So  long  as  his  present  relation 
to  the  universe  subsists  it  can  never  be  said  that  he 
is  complete. 

It  is  curious  to  note  the  way  in  which  this  feature 
of  human  life  has  been  taken  by  different  observers. 
The  imperfect  is  by  turns  fiercely  rebelled  against. 


238  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

stoically  accepted  as  the  inevitable,  or  theologically 
pronounced  upon  as  an  element  of  the  general 
corruption  and  evil  of  the  world.  Taine,  from  his 
outside  position,  speaks  as  Calvin  might  have 
done,  of  "  mutilated  human  nature,  dragging  its 
incurable  hurt  along  the  roads  time  opens  to  it." 
Endless  has  been  the  wail — and  in  some  of  the 
world's  finest  writing — over  the  incomplete  in  all 
human  achievement  and  experience.  We  mourn 
over  "  the  petty  done,  and  the  undone  vast." 
We  complain  of  our  unsatisfied  desire,  and  still  more 
of  that  hour  when,  with  the  outer  desire  satisfied,  the 
soul  still  feels  its  ache.  We  echo  Goethe's  cry  that 
"  the  wished  for  comes  too  late."  We  know  the 
experience  which  Stevenson  in  his  "  Ordered  South  " 
has  so  movingly  described,  when,  coming  to  beautiful 
scenery  which  for  years  we  have  yearned  to  look 
at,  we  find  in  ourselves  no  answering  thrill,  but 
only  a  dulled  soul  that  refuses  to  enjoy.  Is  not 
life  then  a  tragedy  ?  Eternally  to  come  short,  to 
reach  the  goal  and  find  it  no  goal,  to  wander  year 
by  year  in  the  wilderness,  with  cloudy  pillar  in 
front,  but  faiHng  ever  to  reach  our  Promised  Land  ? 
So  humanity,  in  many  keys  and  on  divers  instru- 
ments, has  uttered  its  musical  pathetic  lament. 

But  is  this  all  that  may  be  said  ?  Assuredly  the 
mere  saying  of  things,  be  they  never  so  wise,  will 
not,  by  itself,  lift  the  burden  from  hfe.  Sorrow, 
when  we  have  completely  explained  it,  will  not 
cease  to  be  sorrow.  Nevertheless,  in  this  region 
some  new  conceptions  seem  to  be  rising,  destined, 
may  be,  to  effect  real  changes  in  the  outlook,  and 
with  them  a  not  inconsiderable  inner  and  spiritual 


OF  THE  INCOMPLETE  239 

consolement.  It  is  dawning  upon  us  that,  wherever 
we  take  it,  the  incomplete  is  not  an  evil,  but  a 
good  ;  that  its  meaning  is  not  curse,  but  blessing  ; 
that  its  awkward-looking  gaps  and  crevices  are,  if 
we  narrowly  observe  them,  openings  into  something 
vaster  than  we  knew  before. 

There  is  a  remark  by  John  Ruskin  which  will 
start  us  excellently  on  the  road  we  want  here  to 
follow.  Says  he,  concerning  art,  "Nothing  is  satisfying 
tha,t  is  complete  ;  every  touch  is  false  that  does  not 
suggest  more  than  it  represents."  Have  not  all  of 
us  who  love  art  felt  the  force  of  this  ?  The  strength 
of  a  great  painting  is  in  its  appeal  to  the  imagination, 
in  the  call  it  makes  on  our  faculty  of  interpretation. 
It  does  not  so  much  fill  the  eye  as  stir  the  soul. 
And  where  has  the  painter  here  learned  his  lesson 
but  from  Nature,  the  greatest  of  all  artists  ?  It  is 
the  fascination  of  that  piece  of  hers — the  visible 
universe — that  what  it  dehneates  to  us,  vast  though 
that  be,  is  as  nothing  to  what  it  suggests.  As  we 
study  the  visible  she  offers,  we  recognise  that  this 
patch  of  appearance  may  have  a  thousand  relations 
to  the  invisible  of  which  we  know  nothing.  Bradley, 
our  Oxford  metaphysician,  in  his  "  Appearance  and 
Reality,"  observes  that  "  every  fragment  of  visible 
nature  might,  so  far  as  is  known,  serve  as  part  in 
some  organism  not  like  our  bodies,"  A  similar 
observation  may  be  made  of  events.  That  dark 
side  of  history  which  we  call  catastrophe — the  burst- 
ing of  volcanoes,  the  upheaval  of  earthquakes,  the 
devastations  of  fire  and  pestilence — are  fitted  by 
us  into  an  order  of  conception  and  feeUng  which 
we  call  "  the  terrible,"  "  the  calamitous,"  and  so 


240  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

on.  But  this  shows  only  the  limit  of  our  interpreting 
faculty.  These  events  may,  on  some  other  plane 
of  being,  appear  as  parts  of  a  whole  that  carries  a 
quite  other  significance.  When,  then,  we  speak  of 
Nature's  deformities,  of  her  incompleteness,  let  us 
correct  ourselves,  remembering  that  it  is  our 
interpretation  always  that  is  deformed  and  in- 
complete. 

The  same  remark  may  be  made  in  another  sphere 
of  interpretation — that  of  our  present-day  religion. 
It  has  ever  been  the  aspiration  of  the    theologian 
and  the  ecclesiastic  to  offer  a  system  that  is  complete. 
Rome,  with  her  "  Semper  eadem,^^  makes  finality 
and  infallibility  the  note  of  the  Church.     Protestant- 
ism has  been  not  less  eager.     The  Reformers  argued 
from  a  perfect  Scripture,  and  built  up  what  they 
deemed  four-square,  unassailable  theologies.     And 
one   would   have   thought   if   Providence   intended 
man  to  be  religious  and  Christian,  it  would  have 
taken  care  at  least  to  make  things  quite  shipshape 
and  secure  on  this  side.     But  no  such  thing  !     To- 
day the  "  immutable  "  Roman  Church  rocks  visibly 
on     its     foundations.     The     theological     systems, 
Protestant   and    other,    are    seamed    with   cracks  ; 
at  a  dozen  points  we  see  through  them  to  the  open 
sky.     The  documents,  the  evidences  on  which  so 
many  brave  assumptions  rested,  have  to  the  modern 
examiner  changed  entirely  in  their  asjDect  and  value. 
Our  "  complete  "  theologies  have  turned  out  to  be 
so  very  incomplete  !     But  what  then  ?     Has  Provi- 
dence been  slovenly  ?     Or  do  we  not  discern  in  all 
this  simply  the  Spirit's  vaster  way  ?     Let  us  here 
read  again  our  Ruskin  :  "  Nothing  is  satisfying  that 


OF  THE  INCOMPLETE  241 

is  complete."  Our  systems  were  too  complete. 
Their  covering  was  so  complete  as  to  shut  out  the 
light.  They  fitted  the  soul  so  completely  as  to 
stifle  its  breath  and  prevent  its  growth.  Do  we 
sigh  for  a  creed  so  perfect  in  its  demonstration  that 
there  were  no  trouble  in  believing  it  ?  But  how  if 
we  are  here  not  to  be  saved  from  taking  trouble, 
but  to  be  developed  by  striving  ?  Is  it  not  the 
very  cracks  and  crevices  of  the  older  conceptions 
that  are  saving  us  to-day  ?  Is  it  not  through 
them  we  are  creeping  into  a  roomier,  vaster  temple 
of  God  ? 

*  From  his  systems  and  creeds  let  us  come  again 
to  the  man  himself.  The  students  of  the  social 
movement  of  our  time  have  at  last  reached  the  fact 
that  it  is  out  of  the  calculated  incompleteness  of 
the  individual  that  Nature  is  building  up  a  larger, 
better  humanity.  It  might  be  argued  here  that 
our  individuality — our  most  precious  possession — 
in  itself  requires  incompleteness,  for  it  supposes 
distinction  from,  the  absence  of,  the  traits  of  other 
personalities.  But  there  is  no  need  for  abstractions 
of  that  sort.  To  keep  to  the  evident  and  the  con- 
crete— do  we  not  all  realise  what  we  owe  socially 
to  our  several  defects  ?  It  is  because  we  individually 
lack  this  and  that,  that  we,  as  a  society,  lean  upon 
one  another,  and  that  the  whole  fabric  of  our  common 
life  is  woven.  The  woman  and  the  man,  the  child 
and  the  parent,  the  brain-worker  and  the  handi- 
craftsman, the  temperament  mystical  and  the 
temperament  practical — we  have  here,  through  a 
thousand  diversities,  the  aptitude  of  one  fitting  into 
the  lack  of  another,  and  all  in  this  way  contributing 

16 


242  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

to  that  organic  unity  which  makes  man  mighty 
through  his  fellow  man.  As  we  view  the  spectacle  we 
realise  with  Goethe  that  "  only  mankind  together 
is  the  true  man,  and  that  the  individual  can  only 
be  joyous  and  happy  when  he  has  the  courage  to 
feel  himself  in  the  whole." 

It  is  also  through  the  philosophy  of  the  incomplete 
that  we  get  the  clearest  of  our  modern  lights  on  the 
mystery  of  evil.  The  theology  of  the  conscience, 
studied  from  this  side,  is  a  theology  of  successive 
completes  and  incompletes.  St.  Paul's  pregnant 
sentence,  "  I  had  not  known  sin  except  through 
the  law,"  contains  the  whole  history  of  moral 
evolution.  There  was  a  stage  in  the  prehistoric 
story  when  the  human  soul — an  infant  soul — knew 
a  moral  completeness  that  later  it  found  itself  to 
have  lost.  It  was  like  the  lost  equiUbrium  of  a 
good  walker  who  is  now  learning  to  ride.  From 
grace  and  perfectness  he  has  come  to  awkwardness 
and  physical  misery.  But  the  awkwardness  and 
uneasiness  that  have  succeeded  the  earUer  ease  and 
finish  are  really  a  progress.  The  incomplete  that 
has  been  reached  is  higher  than  the  complete  that 
was  left.  So  in  the  moral  world  the  sinner,  groaning 
over  his  imperfection,  is  further  on  than  that 
progenitor  of  his  who  knew  no  sin.  What  has  made 
our  man  a  sinner  ?  Not  the  performance  of  fresh 
evil.  He  did  all  this  before.  It  is  the  rise  in  him 
of  a  new  ideal  of  good,  in  the  light  of  which  the  old 
life  is  seen  as  inferior  and  therefore  bad.  From  a 
low  grade  "  com])lete  "  he  has  risen  to  a  higher 
"  incomplete."  His  consciousness  of  sin  is  really 
a  great  step  upward.     The  seventh  of  Romans,  that 


OF  THE  INCOMPLETE  243 

agonised  wail  of  a  stricken  soul,  is  also  the  history 
of  a  soul's  ascent. 

If  there  be  truth  in  all  this  let  us  harvest  the  fruit 
it  yields.  There  is  in  it  for  one  thing  a  fruit  of 
joyous  living.  The  imperfections  of  our  life,  its 
ragged  ends,  its  unexplained  mysteries,  are,  truly 
seen,  reasons  not  for  gloom  but  the  contrary.  All 
these  things  are  processes  of  development,  are 
hints  of  wonders  yet  to  come.  That  you  are  here  is 
the  thing,  immeasurably  greater,  if  you  can  see  it, 
than  that  you  are  this  or  that.  The  actual  milestone 
you  have  reached  is  not  the  point.  Is  it  not  some- 
thing to  be  on  the  infinite  road  ? 

Another  thing  follows,  a  supreme  thing.  The 
incomplete  in  us  is,  above  all  else,  the  soul's  prepara- 
tion for  God.  Also  is  it  the  abiding  and  all-sufficient 
proof  of  Him.  If  adaptation  is  evidence  of  anything, 
if  the  eye  suggests  Hght  somewhere,  and  the  ear's 
structure  the  existence  of  sound  waves,  then  wha 
is  in  you  and  me,  the 

Infinite  passion,  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn, 

shape  one  Name  as  key  to  their  mystery.  God  is  the 
only  possible  answer  to  the  human  soul.  In  the 
apostolic  word,  "  Ye  are  complete  in  Him,"  all 
philosophy  is  summed. 

Earth  changes,  but  thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure 

What  entered  into  thee 

That  was,  is,  and  shall  be; 
Time's  wheel  runs  back  or  stops  ;  Potter  and  clay  endure. 


XXVII 
Life's  Appeal 

Supposing  humanity  were  to  overthrow  all  its 
accepted  reUgions  ;  to  wipe  the  slate  clean,  and 
from  the  very  beginning  to  reconstruct  a  theory  of 
its  own  presence  and  significance  on  this  planet  ! 
How  would  it  set  about  this  last  work ;  what  materials 
would  it  find  ;  what  kind  of  a  structure  would  it 
produce  ?  The  question  is  not  an  idle  one,  for 
there  are  multitudes  of  cultivated  people  to-day 
who  find  themselves  quite  in  the  humour  for  it. 
The  past,  with  all  its  legacies,  has  lost  authority 
over  them.  It  was,  they  hold,  an  ignorant  past, 
and  has  no  right  to  dictate  as  though  it  were  superior. 
They  deny  its  call  to  teach.  Could  these  vanished 
generations,  with  their  laboured  systems,  reappear 
in  the  world,  they  would  have  to  sit  at  our  feet, 
not  we  at  theirs. 

When  we  say  that  this  temper  has  to  be  dealt  with 
we  are  by  no  means  admitting  its  contention. 
These  things  are  at  best  only  half  truths.  All  our 
progress  rests  on  the  past,  and  without  it  ours  would 
be  the  blankest  of  worlds.  At  the  same  time  to 
accept  its  challenge  would  be  enormously  interesting. 
The  line  it  throws  us  back  upon  is  so  infinitely 


LIFE'S  APPEAL  245 

suggestive.  We  are  brought  up  sheer  in  front  of 
Life  itself,  and  set  on  the  business  of  interpreting 
its  message.  Has  it  a  message  ;  one  that  can  be 
put  into  language  ;  that  you  can  build  a  faith,  a 
theology  upon  ?  Or  are  we  condemned  simply  to  be 
ever  putting  our  own  fancies  on  the  outside  things  ; 
mistaking  our  own  shadows  for  realities  ?  Are  we 
of  any  import  to  the  universe  ;  or  is  our  notion  that 
the  world  was  made  for  us  of  the  same  order  of 
conceit  as  that  of  the  Athenian  lunatic  who  imag- 
ined that  every  vessel  entering  the  Piraeus  belonged 
to  him  ?  It  would,  indeed,  be  too  presumptuous  to 
suppose  that  we — that  is,  the  things  we  are  to-day 
— are  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  the  world.  What 
does,  however,  seem  affirmable  ;  what,  the  more  we 
study  things,  seems  the  more  impossible  to  escape 
from,  is  the  conclusion  that  a  marvellous  purpose 
is  busy  within  and  around  us,  shaping  our  being 
for  ends  of  its  own,  which  seem  to  be  nothing  less 
than  moral  and  spiritual  ends.  Let  us  take  up 
some  of  the  facts  and  observe  from  them  how  the 
account  stands. 

Our  appeal  is  to  Hfe,  but  we  have  to  begin  it  with  a 
confession  of  ignorance.  We  are  reminded  of  the 
answer  of  Confucius  when  his  disciple  Ke  Loo  asked 
him  about  death:  "While  you  do  not  know  life, 
how  can  you  know  about  death  ?  "  The  answer 
is  as  good  to-day  as  when  it  was  uttered.  Science 
is  groping  after  a  definition  of  hfe,  and  is  opening 
up  problems  of  its  own  on  this  theme  with  which 
we  shall  not  here  concern  ourselves.  But  we  doubt 
if  it  will  ever  reach  a  formula  that  will  express  all 
the  mystery.     For  our  purpose  we  do  not  need  one. 


246  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

When  we  speak  here  of  Hfe  and  its  appeal  we  mean 
only  the  verdicts  of  consciousness,  that  common 
recognisable  experience  which  is  known  to  us  all. 
These  facts  and  experiences  we  say  constitute  an 
appeal  ;  one  that  is  extraordinarily  complicated, 
that  produces  in  us  answers  that  seem  often  flatly 
contradictory  ;  one  that  suggests  ultimate  meanings 
beyond  our  present  ken  ;  but  which,  when  studied  in 
its  totahty,  forms,  we  affirm,  none  the  less  a  veritable 
Gospel. 

Observe  the  way  we  are  handled.  We  are  put 
through  a  process,  precisely  as  raw  cotton  is  put 
through  a  process  on  its  way  to  the  finished  article. 
And  there  seems,  in  our  case,  to  be  a  curious  law 
in  the  process  ;  one  might  call  it  the  law  of  antino- 
mies or  contradictions.  We  get  one  set  of  experi- 
ences and  then  their  exact  opposite.  In  youth  and 
early  manhood,  for  instance,  we  see  at  work  a 
whole  machinery  of  passion.  The  attraction  of 
the  sexes  is,  at  this  stage,  a  purely  passional  attrac- 
tion. The  blood  is  hot  with  desire.  As  Aristotle 
puts  it,  "  The  young  are  heated  by  nature  as  drunken 
men  by  wine."  It  seems  at  times  a  madness,  but 
there  is  method  in  it.  We  have  to  accept  the  pas- 
sions as  part  of  fife's  purpose  in  us.  Milton  finds 
in  them  "  the  very  ingredients  of  virtue,"  and 
Vauvenargues  is  probably  right  when  he  declares 
that  to  them  "  we  perhaps  owe  the  greatest  advan- 
tages of  the  spirit."  But  this  tumult  of  the  blood 
has  a  hmit.  The  movement  carries  to  a  given  point, 
that  of  parenthood,  and  then  all  is  changed.  The 
inner  machinery  of  thought  and  feeling  is  reversed 
and  set  going  in  a  different  direction.     There  is  here 


LIFE'S  APPEAL  247 

a  double  parenthood.  The  father  and  mother  have 
not  only  this  child  of  their  union  ;  there  is  a  birth 
in  themselves  of  an  entirely  new  consciousness. 
There  is  little  or  no  freewill  here.  This  is  Nature's 
way  with  us,  not  our  own.  No  separate  man  or 
woman  ever  planned  for  themselves  the  successive 
developments.  Rather  are  they  the  surprised 
spectators  of  these  phases  of  their  life.  Each  step 
has  opened  a  more  wondrous  prospect ;  but  neither 
the  scenery,  the  route  to  it,  nor  the  force  that  pushed 
them  along  it  is  of  their  making.  All  through 
they  are  the  agents  of  a  power  that  does  the 
planning  and  prepares  the  result. 

And  it  is  hardly  possible  to  mistake  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  double  appeal  that  is  here  made.  In 
this  antinomy  of  passion  and  parenthood  Nature  is 
preaching  to  us  the  plainest  of  sermons.  She  is 
clearly  no  ascetic.  She  begins  by  calling  to  our 
every  faculty.  She  believes  in  the  senses  or  she 
would  not  have  made  them,  or  stirred  them  as  she 
does.  But  the  senses  are  with  her  only  a  beginning. 
Man  is  not  to  end  with  them.  Their  result,  in 
leading  to  parenthood,  is  to  harness  us  to  duty,  to 
service,  to  seK-sacrifice.  They  are,  it  turns  out, 
simply  the  porters  who  open  doors  into  the  nobler 
rooms  of  the  spirit. 

Here  is  no  word  of  traditional  theology,  but  these 
plainest  facts  seem  of  themselves  to  be  getting 
us  pretty  deep  into  both  ethics  and  religion.  Observe 
now  another  of  the  life  antinomies,  that  of  Appear- 
ance and  Reality.  Here  Nature  appears  to  be 
positively  laughing  at  us.  She  is  always  a  humourist , 
and^theology  has  made  no  more  deplorable  blunder 


248  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

than  in  overlooking  the  fact.  There  is  infinite 
humour  in  the  love-making  preliminary  to  the 
discipline  of  family  life.  But  that  is  only  one  trait 
out  of  many  in  her  genial  comedy-making.  She 
begins  by  merrily  deceiving  us.  In  that  lovely 
book  of  mediaeval  religion,  the  "  Ancien  Riowle," 
the  writer  has  some  perception  of  this.  He  thinks 
God  is  playful.  "  The  Lord  when  He  suffereth  us 
to  be  tempted  playeth  with  us  as  the  mother  with 
her  young  darling.  She  flies  from  him  and  hides 
herself,  and  lets  him  sit  alone  and  look  anxiously 
round,  and  call  '  Dame  !  '  '  Dame  !  '  and  weep 
awhile  ;  and  then  she  leapeth  forth  laughing  with 
outstretched  arms  and  embraceth  and  kisseth  him.*' 
Yes,  Ufe  plays  hide-and-seek  with  us  with  evident 
gusto.  She  cradles  us  in  illusions  and  delights  in 
every  kind  of  make-believe.  Our  senses  trick  us. 
They  would  have  us  believe  the  sun  goes  round  the 
earth  and  that  our  planet  is  the  centre  and  big 
thing  of  the  universe.  But  the  jest  is  carried 
much  further.  Our  expectations  are  all  merry 
deceivers.  The  goods  they  deliver  are  not  according 
to  advertisement.  The  satisfaction  of  desire  is,  we 
find,  the  biggest  of  dissatisfactions.  The  moment 
of  winning  the  prize  is  the  moment  of  losing  it. 
We  grasp  a  changehng,  a  something  quite  different 
from  the  thing  we  pursued. 

It  would  be  easy  to  stigmatise  this  play  as  cruel, 
the  mockery  as  heartless.  There  have  not  been 
wanting  critics  who  have  taken  this  view.  And  it 
would  be  a  true  one  if  all  ended  here.  But  in  the 
life-process  the  jest  is  a  kindly  one.  It  is  the 
smile  on    the    face    of    a    giver  who    takes    back 


LIFE'S  APPEAL  249 

the  dangled  toy  to  offer  in  its  place  a  jewel  of 
price.  Nature's  illusions  are  only  the  veils  of 
the  real.  With  healthy  minds  her  disappoint- 
ments, so  far  from  producing  disgust  of  life, 
create  only  a  thirst  for  a  deeper  life — and  point  the 
way  to  it.  Humanity  was  quick  to  perceive  this. 
Its  religions  have  been  built  upon  it.  The  old 
Eastern  philosophy,  which  recognised  the  visible 
world  as  phenomenal  merely,  the  projected  shadow 
of  a  Divine  reality  beneath,  was  in  fact  the  human 
answer  to  this  part  of  life's  mysterious  appeal.  The 
illusions,  mark  you,  are  in  themselves  good  as 
long  as  they  last.  They  contribute  to  hfe's  zest 
and  enjoyment.  And  when  we  find  them  out  it  is 
only  to  discover  that  they  have  changed  their 
function.  As  in  that  earlier  antinomy  of  passion 
and  parenthood,  they  have  become  now  once  more 
the  uncouth  porters  who  open  to  us  the  gates  into 
new  reaches  of  the  spiritual  realm. 

To  take  now  one  more  of  our  paired  opposites. 
Life  offers  itself  to  us  as  for  one  thing  an  affair 
of  the  ugly,  the  Hmited,  the  imperfect.  And  over 
against  that  there  stands  in  man's  heart  the  inde- 
structible sense  of  the  infinite,  the  perfect,  the  wholly 
beautiful.  The  Bethlehem  birth  is  perpetually 
being  repeated  in  this  world.  Always  is  the  glorious 
ideal  being  born  into  the  lowly  actual,  the  sense  of 
the  highest  coming  to  consciousness  in  surroundings 
of  the  sordid  and  the  mean.  That  vision  of  the 
Eternal  Beauty  which  Plato  saw,  and  which  has 
dwelt  since  in  every  artist  breast,  is  a  rehgion  in 
itself  ;  one  against  which  there  is  no  sceptic  answer. 
That  such  an  appeal  as  this  should  come  to  us  out 


250  OUR  CITY  OP  GOD 

of  life,  and  find  in  the  soul  such  a  response,  is  an 
indestructible  foundation  for  faith.  It  is  not  simply 
that  Nature  herself  is  full  of  beauty.  If  that  were 
all  it  would  be  much.  It  would  show  that  the 
power  behind  was  an  artist  ;  that  there  was  mind 
there,  and  soul.  No  conceivable  play  of  chance 
could  end  in  the  beautiful.  From  first  to  last  it 
is  a  soul's  affair.  And  the  creed  taught  by  it  is 
tolerably  clear.  It  could  have  no  affinity  with  the 
ugly.  It  must  reject  a  sainthood  that  cultivates 
dirt.  A  Liguori  living  by  choice  in  a  wretched 
narrow  room  at  the  back  of  a  staircase,  receiving 
light  and  air  from  an  opening  covered  with  paper 
instead  of  glass,  has  evidently,  in  the  light  of  this 
revelation,  mistaken  the  cosmic  idea. 

Plainly  life's  appeal,  as  it  comes  to  us  from  the 
outside,  is  a  plea  for  the  beautiful.  An  insistent 
plea,  which  man  will  be  compelled  to  answer  until 
his  cities,  his  landscapes,  his  tools  and  implements, 
the  whole  furniture  and  surroundings  of  his  existence 
come  under  its  glorious  law.  But  that  is  only  a 
beginning.  The  voices  that  ring  in  his  soul  insist 
on  another  beauty.  Consider  here  the  soul's 
quality.  There  is  no  revelation  so  sure  as  that  in 
the  quaUties  of  things.  To  fire,  or  water,  or  sunHght 
you  may  give  any  name  you  please.  No  name  or 
lack  of  name  will  prevent  them  from  working  out 
into  the  world  all  that  is  hid  in  their  nature.  And 
as  with  fire  or  sunlight  so  with  the  soul.  It  works 
out  of  its  quahty,  out  of  that  mystery  of  its  essence 
which  is  irresistible  and  indestructible.  And  its 
quahty,  ascertainable  whenever  it  shows  itself, 
is  to  aspire  and  to  work  ever  towards  the  perfect — 


LIFE'S  APPEAL  251 

the  perfect,  not  only  of  outward  form,  but  of  that 
mner  and  spiritual  beauty  which  we  call  hoUness. 
What  we  have  here  dwelt  on  is  only  a  part  of  that 
life-appeal  wluch  speaks  in  the  modern  consciousness. 
There  is  far  more,  but  this  in  itself  surely  is  much. 
It  is  a  revelation  as  rich  as  it  is  authentic  and 
authoritative.  It  is  a  revelation  without  books, 
without  Church,  without  catechism  or  tradition. 
And  yet  its  mandate  is  as  clear  as  though  it  pealed 
from  Sinai,  or  wrote  itself  on  tables  of  stone.  And 
the  burden  of  it  ?  Surely  it  is  to  be  of  good  cheer  ; 
to  enjoy  what  Hfe  offers  ;  to  traverse  without  falter- 
ing its  road  of  experience  ;  to  take  its  illusions  and 
disappointments  as  openings  to  deeper  things ; 
to  realise  ever  behind  it  that  Power  which  shares  in 
our  laughter  and  in  our  tears  ;  which  plays  with  us, 
but  will  not  let  us  stop  at  play  ;  which  will  have  us 
rest  at  nothing  short  of  the  highest.  When  from 
this  study  of  life  we  open  the  New  Testament  we 
find  a  name  for  that  Power.  Life's  unvoiced 
appeal  and  this  message  from  Galilee — ^the  message 
which  bids  us  trust  in  a  Father  whose  name  is 
Love — seem  marvellously  in  accord. 


XXVIII 
The    Great   and    the    Small 

One  of  the  first  lessons  our  senses  teach  us  is  the 
difference  in  the  size  of  things.  As  we  grow  older 
the  impression  of  this  deepens,  and  spreads  over 
much  else  than  what  we  see.  The  question  of 
magnitudes,  of  the  scale  of  objects  and  of  our 
relation  to  them,  extends  from  figures  to  ethics,  and 
on  to  the  innermost  spiritual.  Here,  we  perceive, 
is  one  of  Nature's  unspoken  sermons — a  discourse 
of  infinite  depth,  and  with  a  thousand  applications. 
In  the  great  and  the  small  are  wrapped  up  at  once 
a  theology  and  a  discipline.  The  contemplation  of 
them  is  a  revelation  of  the  ways  of  God  ;  the  action 
of  them  is  a  constantly  operating  force  on  our 
character  and  life. 

The  physical  universe,  as  it  opens  to  the  eye  of 
modern  science,  is  our  first  teacher  here.  A  mar- 
vellous teacher,  truly.  As  we  survey  what  it  offers 
we  are  at  a  loss  to  know  on  which  side  the  greatest 
wonders  lie.  Its  great  and  its  small  are  alike  in 
their  infinitude.  Both  go  beyond  our  utmost 
force  of  computation,  or  even  expression.  As  to 
the  first, "we  have  no  figures  in  which  to  sum  the 
magnitudes  which  encompass  us.     The  size  of  our 

2^2 


THE  GREAT  AND  THE  SMALL   253 

own  solar  system  is  enough  to  beggar  thought. 
But  when  we  know  it  as  one  of  millions  of  solar 
systems,  separated  by  distances  so  vast  that  it 
would  take  thousands  of  years  to  count  the  miles 
which  separate  the  nearest  from  each  other  ;  when 
the  telescope  shows  us  stars  so  far  off  that  they 
have  no  parallax  ;  in  other  words,  that  when  we 
have  changed  our  view-point  by  the  180  million 
miles  across  which  our  orbital  motion  has  carried 
us,  these  glittering  points,  seen  from  this  opposite 
extremity,  have  not  changed  their  apparent  position 
by  a  hair's-breadth — we  are  in  a  region  of  magnitudes 
w^hich  we  can  talk  about  and  grope  after,  but  can 
never  realise.  That  is  our  system  on  its  side  of 
greatness. 

But  the  other  confounds  us  not  less.  The 
infinitude  of  the  little  is  one  of  the  revelations  of 
our  time.  Look  into  our  own  body.  The  anatomist 
finds  each  one  of  us  a  macrocosm  containing  in  our 
system  a  whole  universe  of  sentient  Hfe.  What  do 
we  think  of  the  statement  that  the  veins  of  any 
average  man  contain  twenty-five  millions  of  millions 
of  millions  of  red  corpuscles,  each  a  separate,  active 
entity  ;  that  intermingled  with  these  is  the  im- 
measurable host  of  white  corpuscles,  a  race  of  dis- 
cipUned  fighters  incessantly  warring  on  our  behalf 
against  swarms  of  hostile  intruders  ?  With  what 
mind  do  we  contemplate  the  recent  discoveries  in 
radio-activity  ;  discoveries  which  show  us  the  atom 
— the  hitherto  supposed  ultimate  of  minuteness — 
as  itself  infinitely  divisible ;  that,  so  far  from  being 
a  fixed  point,  it  is  an  aggregate  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  particles,  revolving  with  immense  velocity  round 


254  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

a  centre,  as  relatively  distant  from  each  other  as 
stars  in  the  sky,  in  bulk  not  more  than  a  five- 
thousand  millionth  part  of  our  atom  ?  This  is  the 
kind  of  universe  we  are  living  in  ;  this  is  the  revela- 
tion of  its  physically  great  and  small,  so  far  as  it 
has  at  present  been  disclosed  to  us. 

Observing  these  two  extremes,  the  first  point 
that  strikes  us  is  our  own  position  in  relation  to 
them.  Is  not  that  in  itself  a  thing  to  contemplate  ? 
We  seem  to  have  been  placed  midway.  Our 
readers  are  doubtless  aware  of  Dr.  Russel  Wallace's 
speculations  as  to  man  and  his  earth  being  the  centre 
of  the  universe.  Without  committing  ourselves 
to  the  views  of  that  eminent  scientist,  we  are  at 
least  bound  to  consider  the  problem  which  he 
offers.  Why  do  we  stand  where  we  are  in  the 
scheme  of  things  ?  Whatever  or  wherever  we  may 
be  as  to  physical  position,  in  thought  at  least  we  are 
central  in  the  cosmos.  With  equal  facility  we  look 
up  and  down.  We  seem  at  furthest  remove  from 
the  least  and  the  greatest,  while  in  immediate 
contact  with  both.  There  are,  we  may  well  believe, 
hidden  meanings  here  which  it  will  take  ages  to 
disclose.  In  the  meantime  our  relationship  to  these 
two  things  offers,  even  to  our  present  stage  of 
intelligence,  some  very  obvious  lessons. 

Before  reaching  them,  however,  there  is  a  con- 
sideration which  meets  us  at  the  threshold,  and  to 
which,  if  only  in  passing,  we  must  give  a  word. 
In  studying  the  question  of  size,  we  realise  in  the 
most  vivid  way  the  two  worlds  we  are  living  in. 
There  is  the  material  world,  where  we  think  in  miles, 
metres  or  pounds  avoirdupois.     We  say  Mont  Blanc 


THE  GREAT  AND  THE  SMALL   255 

is  15,000  feet  high  ;  that  the  sun's  bulk  is  near  a 
million  and  a  half  times  that  of  the  earth  ;  that  the 
house-fly  on  the  pane  is  less  than  half  an  inch  long. 
But  the  mind  that  makes  these  computations  has, 
in  its  own  structure  and  operations,  nothing  to  do 
with  these  figures  and  sizes.  It  knows  them,  but 
is  not  of  them.  Materialism  has  made  some  strange 
enough  suggestions  in  its  time,  but  we  have  not  heard 
its  most  ardent  disciple  arguing  that  the  idea  of  the 
sun  in  our  brain  is  a  million  and  a  half  times  bigger 
than  our  idea  of  the  earth.  We  do  not  either  talk 
of  square  thoughts  or  of  yellow  emotions.  The  mind 
that  reports  to  us  all  we  know  of  matter  proclaims, 
we  see,  at  every  stage  of  its  operations,  its  own 
isolation.  It  weighs  and  measures  matter,  but  keeps 
it  out  of  doors.  It  suffers  no  invasion  of  its  own 
august,  mysterious  realm.  The  difference  between 
these  two  worlds  will  have  to  be  borne  in  mind  in 
all  that  follows. 

Starting  from  the  physical  side,  let  us  recur  to 
the  point  we  noted,  of  our  contact  as  human  beings 
with  the  infinitely  small  and  the  infinitely  great. 
It  is,  we  may  be  sure,  not  by  chance  that  we  touch 
these  two  things.  Our  contact  is  big  with  ethical 
meaning.  Rightly  apprehended,  we  find  in  them 
the  two  poles  of  the  spiritual  life,  for  they  demand 
from  us  at  once  a  boundless  aspiration  and  an  entire 
humility.  Aspiration,  for,  say  they,  there  is  nothing 
too  great  for  us  ;  humility,  because  the  Divinity  we 
seek  is  not  less  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale  than  at 
the  top.  It  is  along  this  line  that  science  most 
effectually  aids  faith.  In  that  exhibition  of  the 
transcendent  wonders  of  the  atom  which  is  our 


256  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

latest  revelation,"  we  have  a  new  sanction  for  the 
Gospel  virtue  of  lowliness  and  for  its  grace  of  con- 
tentment. The  investigation  which  has  discovered 
the  infinite  potencies  of  the  tiniest  visible  speck 
suggests  the  infinite  potencies  in  our  own  least  and 
lowest.  We  see  here  how  our  insignificancies,  our 
limitations,  are,  not  less  than  their  opposites,  parts 
of  the  Divine  order.  The  infinite  is  not  only  in 
the  heaven  of  heavens  ;  ifc  is  also  in  yonder  mole- 
cule. And  we  shall  have  achieved  one  of  the 
greatest  of  all  the  inner  victories  when  it  has  become 
to  us  an  article  of  faith,  a  fact  of  life  to  be  embraced 
and  held  fast  day  by  da,y,  that  our  least  and  poorest, 
the  side  where  we  do  not  count,  the  failure,  the 
weakness  that  keeps  us  back  from  honour,  the 
obstacle  that  mars  our  pleasure — that  all  this,  not 
less  than  our  shining  gift,  our  sense  of  power,  has 
in  it  and  behind  it  all  the  majesty  of  the  eternal 
purpose.  The  infinitely  great  lives  with  and  by 
the  infinitely  little.  Our  weakness,  not  less  than 
our  strength,  is  a  part  of  God.  It  is  a  side  of  His 
purpose,  an  aspect  of  His  life. 

And  this  is  indeed  a  blessed  discovery.  It  puts 
us  in  love,  not  only  with  a  part,  but  with  the  whole 
of  our  life.  We  look  beyond  the  sordid  surface  to 
the  eternal  beauty  that  gleams  through.  We 
realise  that  existence  itself  is  victory.  We  do  not 
quarrel  with  its  knobs,  excrescences,  and  rough 
surfaces.  We  know  that  weeds,  so  called,  are 
"  plants  whose  virtues  have  not  yet  been  discovered." 
The  doctrine  holds  of  the  inner  garden  as  well  as 
of  our  plot  outside.  We  examiae  our  limitations 
with   a    new    hopefulness.     They   are   the    atomic 


THE  GREAT  AND  THE  SMALL    257 

side  of  us.  It  is,  we  perceive,  only  our  ignorance 
which  hides  from  us  their  mysterious,  beneficent 
working,  their  stupendous  Divine  relationships. 
The  counsel  of  Walter  Pater  about  li\dng  "  so 
exclusively  in  the  ideal  or  poetic  elements,  the 
elements  of  distinction  in  our  everyday  Hfe — that 
the  unadorned  remainder  of  it  becomes  as  though 
it  were  not,"  impresses  us  for  its  beauty  of  expres- 
sion rather  than  for  its  truth.  It  is  the  sentiment  of 
an  Oxford  recluse,  who  knew  too  little  of  the  rough 
and  tumble  of  average  existence.  It  is  in  that 
rough  and  tumble,  if  anywhere,  that  most  of  us 
will  have  to  find  ourselves,  and  it  must  have  its  full 
credit  in  our  scheme  of  things.  The  "  doctrine 
of  the  Uttle,"  which  we  can  thus  apply  so  helpfully 
to  ourselves,  is  one  we  also  constantly  need  in  our 
intercourse  with  our  neighbours.  The  ancient  word 
"  Maxima  reverentia  puero  debetur "  should  be 
widened  in  its  application.  We  are  to  pay  the 
highest  reverence  to  the  boy  because  of  what  he 
may  be.  But  our  doctrine  teaches  us  to  pay  it 
also  to  the  poorest  and  meanest  among  us,  and  that 
because  of  what  he  is.  Here,  too,  could  we  but 
see  it,  is  the  highest  in  disguise. 

This  leads  us  directly  to  the  question  of  the  great 
and  the  small  in  our  interior  hfe.  We  see  here  at 
once  how  all  the  physical  analogies  fail  us.  The 
rule  to  judge  by  now  is  not  the  foot-rule.  Euclid 
gives  us  no  help  in  the  measurement  of  a  great 
soul.  Yet  we  know  one  when  we  see  it,  and  some- 
thing in  our  inmost  nature  forms  the  register  of  its 
dimensions.  We  see,  also,  how  it  comes  by  its 
greatness.     It  is  always  by  alUance  with  something 

17 


258  OUR  CITY  OP  GOD 

greater  than  itself.  The  devotion  to  great  causes, 
the  fellowship  with  great  personalities,  is  in  every 
instance  the  secret.  The  second  here  precedes  the 
first.  William  of  Orange  in  the  death-struggle  of 
the  Netherlands,  Mazzini  in  the  fight  for  ItaKan 
freedom,  give  themselves  each  to  his  cause,  reckless 
of  personal  interest,  because  they  have  each  first 
estabhshed  inward  alliance  with  God.  The  man's 
self  waxes  great  in  proportion  as  it  is  forgotten  in 
something  larger.  Spiritual  littleness,  on  the  other 
hand,  exhibits  the  same  law  on  its  opposite  side. 
When  a  man  is  self-centred,  he  inevitably  dwindles, 
and  for  the  reason  that  such  a  centre  is  not  strong 
enough  to  carry  any  weight  of  structure.  The  New 
Testament  word  that  we  must  lose  our  life  to  find  it 
is,  it  thus  appears,  nothing  less  than  the  organic, 
fundamental  law  of  the  spirit. 

Drummond,  in  his  "  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual 
World,"  might  have  added  a  chapter  on  "  The 
Soul's  Law  of  Gravitation."  There  is  such  a  law, 
which  operates  as  constantly  and  as  universally  as 
that  which  keeps  the  planets  in  their  course.  A 
character,  a  personality,  draws  men  in  exact  pro- 
portion to  its  spiritual  dimension.  We  have  here 
the  origin  and  growth  of  Churches,  of  religions.  The 
secret  of  discipleship  is  a  secret  of  solar  attraction. 
An  emancipated  nature,  grown  beyond  the  dimen- 
sions of  selfhood,  draws  the  lesser  souls  by  a  force 
irresistible  as  the  sun's  action  on  Mars  and  Jupiter. 
Here  is  an  astronomy  real  as  that  which  occupies  our 
telescopes.  As  the  sun  holds  and  swings  the  planets, 
itself  drawn  by  some  mightier  force  which  keeps  it 
and   them  in  their  vast  journey   through  space, 


THE  GREAT  AND  THE  SMALL   259 

so  here  we  see  central,  elect  souls  by  their  mass 
and  quality  drawing  into  their  light  and  warmth 
the  lesser  natures,  to  be,  in  their  turn,  with  their 
followers,  swept  on  by  a  gravitation  mightier  than 
their  own  toward  the  spirit's  ultimate  bourn. 

In  the  human  evolution  the  great  of  the  j)hysical 
sphere,  while  keeping  its  due  place  in  the  cosmic 
order,  will  in  the  end  be  everywhere  recognised  as 
inferior  to  the  other  greatness.  What  the  foremost 
souls  have  always  seen  will  be  seen  in  the  end  by 
the  brotherhood  at  large.  A  nation,  a  city,  will 
value  itself  not  by  its  material  bigness,  but  by  th^ 
height  of  its  inner  life.  The  glory  of  Athens,  the 
thrill  which  comes  from  Jerusalem,  have  nothing  to 
do  with  their  diameter,  or  the  census  of  their 
population.  "  What,"  cries  Renan,  "  is  the  whole 
of  America  beside  a  ray  of  that  infinite  glory  with 
which  a  city  of  the  second  or  third  order — Florence, 
Pisa,  Siena,  Perugia — shines  in  Italy  !  "  The  sen- 
tence is,  no  doubt,  a  vast  exaggeration.  But  it 
would  be  true  were  America  to  produce  nothing  be- 
yond her  crops,  her  iron  and  steel,  and  her  million- 
aires. She  will  be  measured  in  history,  as  Thucydides 
said  of  Attica,  by  her  capacity  to  produce  men.  And 
the  measurement  of  history  is  akin  to  the  measure- 
ment of  eternity.  When  the  seer  in  the  Apocalypse 
says,  "  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before 
God,"  the  question  is,  "  Who  here  are  the  small 
and  who  the  great  ?  "  It  were  well  for  us  surely 
to  become  clear  on  this  point,  and,  with  the  least 
delay  possible,  to  square  our  theory  of  values  with 
the  one  which  will  there  be  used  in  judgment  ! 


k  XXIX 

Our    Holy    Places 

Those  holy  fields, 
Over  whose  acres  walked  those  blessed  feet 
Which  fourteen  hundred  years  ago  were  nailed 
For  our  advantage  to  the  bitter  cross. 

The  lines,  famiKar  to  most  of  us,  give  us  Henry  IV., 
in  Shakespeare's  great  play,  explaining  to  his 
courtiers  his  project  of  a  new  expedition  to  Palestine. 
Is  it  not,  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  a  kind  of 
miracle,  this  Palestine  ?  For  ages  that  strip  of 
land  on  the  far  edge  of  the  Mediterranean  has 
drawn  the  world  as  the  moon  draws  the  sea.  In 
the  mediaeval  time  we  have  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  men,  from  kings  to  peasants,  leaving  home, 
family,  pleasure,  business,  that  they  might  look 
on  this  piece  of  earth,  that  they  might  open  the 
way  to  it  for  their  fellow-believers.  To-day,  under 
different  forms,  there  is  the  same  mysterious 
fascination.  From  Ln gland,  from  America,  from 
states  Catholic  and  Protestant,  from  the  snows  of 
Russia,  pilgrims  wend  there  in  endless  procession. 
The  rich  go  in  luxury,  the  poor  ragged  and  barefoot, 
but  the  same  emotion  burns  in  all  hearts.  The  Jew 
knows  this  country  as  the  home  at  once  of  his  race 

260 


OUR  HOLY  PLACES  261 

and  of  his  religion.  We  English  have  no  such 
possession  of  England  as  the  Jew  had  of  Palestine. 
England  is  not,  to  such  a  depth,  the  country  of  our 
soul.  It  is  our  birthplace  and  our  home.  But  our 
religion  is  an  exotic.  London  has  not  the  signif:- 
cance  to  us  of  Jerusalem.  We  have  lakes,  springs, 
mountains,  but  no  Lake  of  Galilee,  no  well  like  that 
of  Jacob,  no  hill  sacred  as  Zion  or  Olivet.  And  yet 
the  Jew,  to  whom  the  land  was  all  this,  the  father- 
land of  both  his  body  and  his  soul,  is  in  perpetual 
exile  from  it  !  Altogether,  we  say,  a  miraculous 
country. 

But  there  are  questions  raised  here  which  go 
beyond  Jew  and  Gentile,  bej^ond  Palestine  and  its 
pilgrims.  That  the  world  should  have  sacred 
places  at  all,  that  such  emotions  towards  them 
should  arise  in  the  minds  of  men  and  sway  them  as 
they  do,  is  a  matter  that  in  itself  claims  our  fullest 
attention.  Plainly  here  is  an  affair  not  of  reasoning 
or  of  calculation.  These  movements  are  born 
not  of  the  aesthetic  sense,  not  of  trade  and  profit,  not 
of  ambition.  We  are  plainly  on  the  track  of  one 
of  those  forces  outside  reason  which,  more  than 
reason,  go  to  the  making  of  man.  Could  we  indeed 
read  to  the  bottom  the  secret  of  man's  pilgrimages, 
we  should  have  gone  far  into  the  entire  riddle  of 
himself  and  his  world. 

The  secret  is  one  chiefly  of  the  soul,  but  not 
the  soul  only.  When  a  spot  has  become  sacred  to 
men  it  is  always  in  the  first  place  because  a  great 
spirit  has  dwelt  there.  But  another  arresting  feature 
is  the  way  in  which,  in  the  making  of  a  "  holy 
place,"  the  outside  matter,  the  physical  surrounding, 


262  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

has  acted  as  a  kind  of  reflex  of  this  soul,  one  might 
say  an  absorbent  of  it ;  such  that,  by  dwelling  in  the 
place,  the  saint  or  hero  has  saturated  it  with  his 
personality,  as  though  emanations  from  his  central 
self  had  poured  into  this  house  he  dwelt  in,  into 
these  fields  and  hills  his  eye  looked  upon.  There 
seems  a  subtle  giving  off  of  the  soul,  a  passing  of  its 
essence  into  its  immediate  surroundings  ;  a  process 
which  might  be  compared  to  that  outrush  of  electrons 
from  the  atom  which,  as  science  is  now  showing  us, 
is  one  of  the  forms  of  radio-activity. 

This  subtle  reaction  of  mind  and  matter,  be  it 
observed,  extends  over  the  whole  area  of  mental 
life.  Every  feeling  in  us,  our  innermost  heart-beat, 
is  held  and  reflected  by  the  outside  that  envelops  us. 
A  violin  played  on  by  a  master  acquires  a  new  value. 
The  music  has  got  into  the  w^ood.  The  soul's  music, 
in  all  its  kinds,  from  sadness  to  exultation,  in  like 
manner  vibrates  through  its  physical  surroundings- 
Has  a  tragedy  happened  in  the  house  ?  The  build- 
ing becomes  henceforth  itself  tragic.  The  shadow 
in  the  souls  that  sinned  or  suffered  there  glooms 
on  the  walls  for  ever.  With  what  weird  power 
has  Philip  Marston  put  this  for  us  in  his  picture  of 
the  haunted  house  ! 

Must  this  not  be,  that  one  then  dwelling  here, 
Wliere  one  man  and  his  sorrows  dwelt  fo  long. 
Shall  feel  the  pressure  of  a  ghostly  throng, 
And  shall  upon  some  desolate  midnight  hear 
A  sound  more  sad  than  is  the  pine-trees'  song, 
And  thrill  with  great  inexplicable  fear  ? 

Compare  w4th  this  the  emotion  of  the  exile  who, 
after  forty  years'  absence  at  the  world's  far  end, 


OUR  HOLY  PLACES  263 

comes  back  to  the  old  English  homestead  where  he 
was  born  !  The  timbers,  the  grey  stones,  common- 
place to  other  wayfarers,  shine  upon  him  with  a 
spiritual  radiance  ;  they  have  a  voice  which  goes  to 
his  heart.  The  soul  of  the  past  is  there  enshrined  ; 
here,  preserved  for  him  in  doorway,  gable  and  ingle 
nook  are  a  thousand  precious  memories.  The  essence 
of  his  early  years — of  loved  faces  that  are  gone 
and  voices  that  are  silent — distils  into  his  heart. 
For  him,  as  long  as  it  stands,  a  dear  and  holy  place  ; 
holy,  because  the  rude  material  of  it  has  become 
saturate  with  soul. 

This  intimate  partnership  of  world  and  spirit 
shows  itself  in  the  most  diverse  forms.  We  observe, 
for  example,  how  the  peculiar  quality  of  a  dominating 
personality  colours  for  us  the  whole  impression 
of  a  landscape.  Each  country  has  its  own  style  of 
haunting.  Its  presiding  genius  has  each  his  peculiar 
spell,  and  we  see  through  his  eyes.  Why  does  the 
Lake  Country  impress  us  so  differently  from  the 
scenery  of  the  Border  and  of  the  Highlands  ? 
It  is  not  the  contour  of  the  hills  or  the  colour  of  the 
skies.  It  is  that  the  region  is  under  a  different 
inspiration.  Grasmere  and  Langdale  we  find  possess- 
ing us  with  the  calm  cult  of  Nature,  and  of  the 
presence  that  is  behind  Nature,  with  "  the  sense 
of  something  subtly  interfused."  We  are  dreamy, 
contemplative,  introspective.  And  we  know  the 
reason.  It  is  because  a  spirit  of  this  kind  has  been 
before  us,  and  laid  his  spell  upon  the  land.  We 
are  in  the  Wordsworth  country.  But  at  Loch 
Katrine  or  under  Ben  Ledi  our  mood  is  all  warlike 
and  romantic.     The  heart  dances  to  the  tune  of  the 


264  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

old  chivalries.  The  mountains,  the  valleys  seem 
made  for  that,  and  to  give  this  as  their  message. 
Again,  a  clear  case  of  spiritual  penetration  and 
possession.  This  is  the  land  of  romance,  because 
the  soul  of  Sir  Walter,  its  poet  and  lover,  was  the 
home  of  romance. 

It  is  precisely  this  sense  of  a  special  quality  of 
soul  that  gives  the  peculiar  flavour  of  feeling  with 
which  we  come  to  spots  that  in  the  stricter  sense 
we  call  "  holy."     Art,  philosophy,  romance,  exhale, 
as  we  have  seen,  their  own  particular  virtue.    But 
their  charm  is  not  that  of  religion,  of  the  spirit's 
loftiest  exercise.     This  has  a  thrill  of  its  own,  un- 
translatable   into    any  other.       Olivet  and  Assisi 
have  a  different  aroma  from  that  of  the  Parthenon 
or   the  Louvre.     At  Oxford  yoa  have  one  grade 
of  pleasure  in  the  Bodleian,  another  at  the  Martyrs' 
Memorial,  or  looking  up  at  the  window  at  Lincoln 
College    behind    which    Wesley    and    the    "  Holy 
Club  "  met  for  study  and  prayer.     So  remote  is  this 
consciousness  from  aestheticism,  from  the  cult  of  the 
physically  beautiful,  that  the  attempt  so  often  made 
to  produce  the  one  from  the  other  is  always  a  failure. 
Rome  is,  perhaps,  the  best  example  of  what  we 
mean.     St.  Peter's  charms  the  one  sense,  but  leaves 
the  other  untouched.    The  pilgrims  to  Rome  have 
found  it  at  once  the  centre  of  art  and  the  negation 
of  faith.     So  was  it   with  Petrarch,  who  names  it 
Babylon  ;  with  Luther,  whom  it  made  a  Protestant  ; 
with  Goethe,  who  left  it  filled  with  anti-Catholic 
rage,  to  write  the  "  Venetian  Epigrams."     What 
we  want  for  our  "  holy  place  "  is  not  architecture, 
but  the  first  simplicity.     The  high  rapture  we  seek 


OUR  HOLY  PLACES  265 

would  come  to  us,  not  under  gilded  domes,  but  at 
the  spot,  could  we  find  it,  where  Paul  lodged  and 
taught  in  his  chains.  We  should  love  to  light  on 
the  nook  of  which  Justin  Martyr  writes  :  "  I  am 
lodging  with  a  man  called  Martin,  above  the 
Timothine  Baths,"  the  house  where,  he  says, 
the  little  Christian  band  met  for  worship ;  and 
that  spot,  could  we  hit  on  it,  in  Smyrna,  of  which 
Irenseus  speaks  :  "  I  can  tell  also  the  very  place 
where  the  blessed  Polycarp  was  accustomed  to 
sit  and  discourse ;  and  also  his  entrances,  his 
walks,  .  .  .  and  his  conversations  with  the  people 
and  his  familiar  intercourse  with  John,  ...  as 
also  his  famiharity  with  those  that  had  seen  the 
Lord." 

It  is  this  speciality  of  the  reUgious  sense,  this 
struggle  which  it  wages  for  a  pure,  unadulterated 
manifestation,  that  has  given  rise  to  Puritanism,  to 
those  bare  simplicities  of  worship  so  offensive 
to  art,  but  so  mighty  for  life.  It  is  the  cry  for 
immediacy  of  access  of  spirit  to  spirit  which  would 
have  no  distraction  of  the  outward  in  its  high  inter- 
course. Jacob's  rude  block  at  Bethel  was  better 
as  a  Divine  remembrancer  than  a  garish  temple. 
Here  is  why  simple  souls  have  found  their  bare 
meeting-house  more  sacred  than  cathedral  altar. 
They  know  it  as  the  place  where  the  heart  has 
reached  its  deepest  and  highest,  where  the  soul  has 
found  its  utmost  wealth  of  inner  experience.  The 
uncushioned  pew,  the  rude  bench,  have  been  to  them 
the  Damascus  road  where  the  vision  came,  their 
Milan  garden  where,  like  Augustine,  they  heard 
the  inner  voice  that  shaped  their  destiny.    By  the 


266  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

Spirit's  thrill,  most  august  of  consecrations,  the 
lowly  place  has  become  holy  ground. 

Every  thinking  man,  in  his  progress  through  life, 
has  his  elect  spots,  unnoted  of  others,  which  are 
shrines  to  him.  Poor  indeed  is  our  home  if  there 
be  not  some  quiet  chamber  in  it,  whose  windows 
open  toward  Jerusalem.  There  is  a  corner,  a  chair, 
a  bedside,  whence  the  soul  has  found  passage- 
way upward,  and  where  secret  strengths  have 
flowed  in  on  it,  as  from  uttermost  heights.  Often 
these  places  are  the  unlikeliest  of  all.  Prison 
floors,  the  bottommost  abyss  of  outward  affliction, 
are  by  the  soul's  magic  turned  into  altars.  A 
victim  of  the  earthquake  at  Valparaiso,  in  a  letter  to 
the  present  writer,  describes  how,  thrust  by  the 
disaster,  with  his  family,  from  a  comfortable  home, 
upon  the  bare  hillside,  with  no  shelter  from  the 
bitter  cold,  he  found,  in  the  four  nights  thus  spent,  a 
sense  which  he  would  never  after  forget  of  the  Divine 
presence  and  love.  To  sincere  hearts  each  year 
makes  the  world  richer  in  these  sanctities.  One 
becomes  almost  superstitious  about  them.  There  is 
a  certain  spot  in  one  of  the  most  crowded  streets  of 
London,  where  the  present  writer  has,  in  passing, 
had  time  after  time  such  sudden  rush  of  happy 
thought  as  to  make  him  wonder  whether  hidden 
behind  the  brickwork  there  be  not  some  ministering 
sprite,  some  mystic  fount  of  inspiration. 

But  as  our  view  enlarges,  the  visible  world  itself, 
apart  from  this  or  that  spot  in  it,  acquires  a  conse- 
cration of  its  own.  We  apprehend  another  side  to 
it.  At  every  point  it  gives  hints  of  a  meaning, 
a  reality  behind,  infinitely  greater  than  appears. 


OUR  HOLY  PLACES  267 

The  old  paganism  which  peopled  every  hill  and 
stream  with  its  genius  or  unseen  guardian  was  but 
the  crude  expression  of  what  humanity  has  every- 
where instinctively  divined,  that  matter  was  im- 
bedded in  spirit ;  that  the  outward  was  but  the 
symbol  of  an  inward.  All  lustrations,  baptisms, 
eating  of  bread,  drinking  of  wine — sacraments  in- 
corporated into  Christianity  from  usages  old  as  the 
world — mean  the  same  thing.  We  partake  of  our 
sacrament  wherever  we  discern  and  reverence  the 
invisible  in  our  use  and  enjoyment  of  the  visible. 
Our  sense  of  the  earth's  beauty  becomes  then  an 
act  of  religion.  We  survey  its  glory  in  the  spirit 
of  Augustine,  with  his  "  Wrangle  who  pleases, 
I  will  wonder."  The  soughing  of  the  woods,  "  the 
ancient  everlasting  song  of  brooks  and  streams," 
sound  in  our  ears  as  voices  in  a  temple,  the 
snowy  mountains  are  our  vision  of  the  eternal 
throne. 

All  that  has  here  been  said,  leads,  it  will  be  per- 
ceived, in  one  direction  and  centres  in  one  result. 
The  ultimate  "  holy  place  "  is  always  a  soul.  The 
wide  earth  is  consecrated  by  the  universal  soul 
that  is  in  it.  Each  elect  spot  has  acquired  its 
virtue  from  some  pure  spirit  that  has  there  shed  its 
light  and  power.  There  is  no  sanctity  of  buildings, 
of  shrines,  of  rites  or  relics,  but  is  the  reflection 
from  an  inner  Hfe.  One  wonders,  amid  the  rush 
of  modern  civilisation,  whether,  considering  its  aims 
and  tendencies,  it  is  capable  of  adding  to  the  holy 
places  of  the  early  world  ;  whether  Chicago  or  New 
York  will  ever  be  centres  of  pilgrimages  ?  That  will 
come  under  only  one  condition — a  condition  not  too 


268  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

apparent  just  now — that  souls  grow  there  of  such 
quality  and  reach  to  such  heights  as  shall  enable 
them,  as  of  old,  effectually  to  lighten,  warm,  and 
purify  the  world.  The  modern  man  needs  to  utter 
with  a  new  intensity  the  prayer  in  the  Phaedrus  : 
'  Grant  me  beauty  in  the  inward  soul,  and  may 
the  outward  and  inward  man  be  at  one." 


XXX 

Renewals 

Life  contains  a  law  of  renewals  which  is  worth  more 
study  than  seems  to  have  been  given  to  it.  It  meets 
us  at  every  turn,  this  law,  impressing  itself  on 
everything  we  see  and  everything  we  do.  It  is  so 
famihar  that  we  are  apt  to  overlook  its  subtlety, 
and  the  wonderful  implications  that  lie  in  it.  Re- 
newal contains  for  one  thing  the  element  of  repeti- 
tion, which  itself  is  something  to  reflect  upon. 
How  strange  when  we  think  of  it,  this  law  of  iteration 
on  which  our  world  is  constructed  !  We  could 
imagine  it  as  so  far  otherwise  ;  a  world  where 
every  fresh  morning  and  every  fresh  deed  were 
radically  different  from  every  other  morning  and 
deed.  But  the  sun  comes  punctually  to  his  hour. 
Water,  air,  fire  meet  us  to-day  with  the  same  quahties 
as  they  did  yesterday.  A  great  mass  of  our  own 
doings  are  a  round  of  repetitions.  How  much  of  our 
years  have  been  spent  in  getting  into  and  out  of  our 
clothes  ;  in  eating  our  three  or  four  meals  a  day  ;  in 
turning  into  bed  and  sleeping  there  ;  in  performing 
the  same  daily  journey,  in  doing  the  same  work  ! 
Sameness,  to  this  degree,  is,  to  be  sure,  no  mere 
arbitrary  custom.  It  is  a  law  of  life  which  has  more 
in  it  than  at  present  we  know. 


270  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

But  if  we  observe  closely  we  discover  in  this  round 
of  things  something  more  than  repetition.  Quietly, 
unostentatiously — so  quietly  that  her  sleight-of- 
hand  is  apt  to  go  unnoted — Nature  slips  into  the 
process  her  touch  of  the  new.  When  we  have 
watched  long  enough  we  see  that  her  round  is  not, 
after  all,  a  circular  one.  It  is  a  spiral.  To  change 
the  illustration,  we  may  say  that  into  her  music, 
which  begins  with  the  simplest  air,  come  incessant 
variations,  growing  always  in  fulness  and  com- 
plexity. Take  natural  history  as  a  story  of  her 
renewals.  In  the  animal  series,  from  the  ascidian 
up  to  man,  she  gives  you  at  every  stage  the  same 
principle  "with  a  fresh  application.  Her  economies 
are  marvellous.  She  is  ever  cutting  her  old  clothes 
to  new  patterns.  A  man's  hand  is  just  the  fore- 
foot of  a  horse  with  a  cunning  twist  given 
to  it.  The  body  of  a  child  before  birth  takes  on  in 
succession  all  the  typal  forms  from  the  humblest 
to  this  human  highest.  It  is  an  object-lesson 
giving  in  epitome  the  slow  process  of  the  ages.  The 
history  of  forms  is  a  history  of  renewals  ;  renewals 
that  are  climbing  always  upwards  towards  some 
far-off  summit. 

It  is,  however,  when  we  come  to  the  inner,  conscious 
Hfe  that  we  reach  the  vital  lessons  of  our  theme. 
Renewal  which  works  in  this  way  in  the  outer 
world  is,  we  perceive,  operating  with  no  less  cer- 
tainty in  the  spiritual  realm.  The  history  of  rehgion, 
as  it  opens  to  the  modern  eye,  is  telling  us  a  story 
of  renewals  that  is  of  utmost  consequence  to  faith. 
Here  again, is  the  eternal  music,  beginning  with  the 
simple  air,  into  which  are  constantly  woven  new 


RENEWALS  271 

and  mightier  harmonies.  Tindal's  "  Christianity  as 
old  as  the  Creation  "  was,  as  a  title,  by  no  means  so 
wide  of  the  mark  as  seemed  to  his  orthodox  con- 
temporaries. Augustine,  in  a  memorable  passage, 
had  said  precisely  the  same  thing.  The  best  reUgion 
we  have  to-day  has  been  in  humanity  in  germ  all 
along.  How  significant  that  remark  made  by  the 
Indians  to  the  missionary  EHot  :  "  Their  forefathers 
did  know  God,  but  after  this  they  fell  into  a  deep 
sleep,  and  when  they  did  awake  they  quite  forgot 
Him."  The  religious  history  of  Egypt,  of  Babylonia, 
of  India  and  China,  as  we  are  now  learning  it,  shows 
humanity  as  from  the  beginning  possessed  by  the 
same  rehgious  aspirations,  moving  under  the  same 
reUgious  impulse,  waiting  for  and  opening  their 
minds  to  the  same  drip  of  revelation. 

That  is  the  start  of  the  music.  But  observe  how 
it  proceeds.  One  of  the  most  salient  examples  of 
our  law  of  renewal  in  religion  is  that  given  in  the 
history  of  revivals.  We  know  the  rehgious  revival 
as  a  period  of  high  spiritual  excitement,  when 
multitudes  of  men  come  under  a  mysterious  psychic 
influence,  and  when  striking  results  are  obtained 
in  the  region  of  the  moral  life.  No  instructed  person, 
whatever  his  standpoint,  and  whatever  he  makes  of 
them,  can  help  accepting  revivals  as  a  fact,  a 
part  of  the  world-process  in  humanity.  But  here 
comes  the  point.  As  the  years  roll  on  these  pheno- 
mena are  renewed  ;  but  the  renewal  is  never  the 
same  thing.  There  is  always  to  be  noted  in  them  a 
move  forward.  To  take  an  instance.  Phrygia, 
in  pagan  times,  was  noted  for  its  religious  excite- 
ments.    The    inhabitants,    in    their    worship     of 


272  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

Cybele,  gave  themselves  up  to  extravagant,  mystical 
frenzies.  Later,  under  Christianity,  Phrygia  be- 
came the  centre  of  the  Montanism  of  the  second 
century.  The  old  emotional  furore  was  renewed. 
Artisans,  women  preachers,  claiming  a  special 
inspiration,  stirred  the  multitudes  to  intensest 
religious  passion.  The  enthusiasms,  gesticulations, 
prostrations,  reminded  observers  of  the  Corybantic 
orgies  of  the  earlier  days.  But,  with  all  its  excesses, 
how  far  in  advance  was  the  Montanist  revival 
over  these  predecessors  ?  Into  the  old  passion 
and  fervour  a  new  element  had  come,  while  a  mass 
of  coarser  ingredients  had  been  drained  away.  Of 
every  revival  that  has  happened  since  in  Christen- 
dom a  similar  thing  might  be  said.  The  mighty 
stirrings  of  the  thirteenth  century,  out  of  which  the 
begging  Orders  arose,  were  an  enormous  gain  upon 
the  corruption  that  preceded  ;  but  how  inferior 
in  the  outlook  they  offered  to  the  revival  of  the 
Reformation  !  Methodism  was  born  in  a  revival,  a 
movement  of  magnificent  moral  vigour,  but  with 
vast  gaps  on  its  intellectual  side. 

To-day  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a  new,  and  to  many 
an  apparently  ahen,  movement.  Instead  of  these 
enthusiasms  we  have,  ruling  over  wide  and  influential 
classes  of  society,  the  scientific  and  critical  spirit. 
There  has  been  an  enormous  process  of  negation,  of 
weeding  out,  of  mental  reconstruction.  And  the 
soul  has  had  to  pay  for  this  by  a  temporary  loss  of 
feeling.  It  has  seemed  at  times  as  if  the  old  devo- 
tion, the  old  ecstasy  of  the  rehgious  life,  were  gone 
beyond  recall.  Mr.  Morley,  in  his  "  Compromise," 
says  of  our  day  :  "  Rehgion,  whatever  destinies  may 


RENEWALS  273 

be  in  store  for  it,  is  at  least  for  the  present  hardly  any 
longer  an  organic  power.  It  is  not  that  supreme, 
penetrative,  controlling,  decisive  part  of  a  man's 
life  which  it  has  been  and  will  be  again."  The  passage 
is  a  prophecy.  "  And  will  be  again."  Assuredly 
we  may  trust  here  Nature's  principle  of  renewals. 
What  she  once  sets  going  she  never  again  loses 
sight  of.  The  air  recurs,  in  higher  key,  sweeter,  with 
divine  variations.  What  has  been  taking  place  in 
religion  might  be  compared  to  a  spiral  movement 
round  a  mountain  towards  its  summit.  The 
path,  in  its  winding,  leads  at  times  quite  away  from 
the  prospect.  But  it  always  comes  back  to  it,  and 
at  every  fresh  turn  the  scene  is  given  us  from  a  higher 
standpoint  and  over  a  vaster  realm.  There  is  no 
conflict  between  science  and  rehgion.  What  is 
going  on  is  this  combined  upward  movement  of 
the  two  forces.  And  the  next  great  revival  will 
show  the  result.  It  will  be  as  high  above  the  earher 
ones  in  the  quality  of  its  contents  as  Montanism 
was  high  above  its  Phrygian  predecessors.  All  the 
music  will  be  in  this  renewal.  Everything  that 
enters  into  the  religious  life  and  constitutes  its  value 
— its  unspeakable  delight  of  feeling,  its  vision  of  God, 
its  moral  victory,  its  triumph  of  love — will  be  there, 
and  this  conjoined  with  an  intellectual  wealth  that 
immeasurably  heightens  the  feehng,  while  provid- 
ing for  it  an  immutable  foundation.  We  repeat, 
there  are  no  leakages  in  the  spiritual  order.  Not 
one  atom  of  rehgion  that  has  come  into  this  world 
will  ever  be  lost  out  of  it.  Nature's  law  of  renewal 
is  here  our  sure  charter  of  faith. 

"  Is  this  the  inevitable  world-movement  ?  "  cries 

18 


274  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

some  one.  "  Then  let  it  go  on.  We  need  not 
trouble  ourselves  further  about  it."  That  would  be 
the  worst  of  constructions  and  the  falsest  of  in- 
ferences. The  world-movement  is  our  movement. 
It  is  the  divine  impulse  that  stirs  in  us  and  that  it 
were  highest  treason  to  disobey.  As  Dr.  Gore  has 
well  said,  "  When  the  best  men  stop  trying  the 
world  sinks  back  hke  lead."  And  here  it  is  that 
the  topic  becomes  immediately  personal.  The 
higher  renewals  in  the  life  of  the  nation  and  the 
Church  depend  on  the  renewals  in  our  own  Hfe. 
To  lose  from  ourselves  the  power  of  securing  them 
were  to  lose  everything.  That  power  is  accord- 
ingly, above  all  others,  one  to  be  kept  and  re- 
inforced. In  order  to  do  this  we  need  to  know  the 
sources  and  alhes  of  renewal,  and  to  keep  in  touch 
with  them.  One  of  the  most  potent  of  these  is  the 
law  of  association.  We  all  know  the  way  in  which 
a  note  of  music  or  the  scent  of  a  flower  will  at  times 
set  all  our  being  in  a  flame.  There  is  a  Middlesex 
country  lane  known  to  the  writer  where  the  scent 
of  a  bush  of  sweet-briar  has  time  and  again  sent 
him  back  with  a  rush  upon  his  boyhood's  days 
— to  an  old  garden  which  had,  too,  its  bush  of  sweet- 
briar,  and  so  to  recollections  which  revoke  the  years 
and  make  him  a  boy  again. 

It  is  on  this  principle  of  association,  solidly 
laid  in  the  deeps  of  us,  that  reUgion  founds  some  of 
its  most  potent  forces.  It  is  a  spring  of  renewal. 
Through  something  outward,  that  appeals  to  the 
senses,  we  are  carried,  as  in  a  flash,  to  our  utmost 
inward.  As  Walter  Pater  puts  it  :  "  Religious 
sentiment.     .     .     .     has  always  had  much  to  do 


RENEWALS  275 

with  localities,  with  the  thoughts  that  attach  them- 
selves to  actual  scenes  and  places."  The  spiritual 
life,  wherever  it  has  been  greatly  lived,  seems  to 
exhale  its  perfume  on  the  material  things  it  has 
had  contact  with,  and  to  sweeten  them  for  ever. 
In  one  way  or  another  we  all  admit  the  sanctity  of 
the  relic.  The  tomb  of  a  loved  one,  to  a  high  soul, 
is  always  a  place  of  spiritual  renewal. 

It  is  because  of  our  need  to  keep  in  good  order, 
and  at  its  full  working  power,  our  apparatus  of 
renewal  that  we  see  the  permanent  use  of  religious 
observance  and  worship.  We  go  to  it  not  to 
hear  the  latest  news,  but  for  inward  refreshing. 
Often  enough  the  place  of  meeting  is  itself  our 
channel  of  inspiration.  The  consecration  of  a  church 
building  Ues  not  in  any  ecclesiastical  formula 
uttered  over  it.  Its  sacredness  comes  from  the 
"  heart-work  "  that  has  gone  on  in  it.  Where  the 
purposes  for  which  the  structure  has  been  reared 
are  truly  realised  the  worshipper  feels  that  some- 
thing mystic  has  happened  to  its  very  materials. 
Like  a  violin  in  the  hands  of  a  great  player,  "  the 
music  has  got  into  the  wood."  Modest  conventicles, 
without  pretension  to  external  beauty,  become  in 
this  way  veritable  shrines.  Humble  souls  go  there 
as  to  a  spiritual  rendezvous.  Before  word  is  spoken 
we  are  often  in  the  case  of  good  Alexandrian  Philo, 
who,  as  he  says,  from  being  empty,  "  suddenly 
became  full,  ideas  being  in  an  invisible  manner 
showered  upon  him  and  implanted  in  him  from  on 

high." 

There   are   few   things,   we  repeat,   more  worth 
safeguarding  than  our  power  of  renewal.     Especially 


276  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

in  the  higher  things.  Our  personal  Ufe  should,  in 
this  matter,  follow  the  order  we  have  observed  in 
the  world's  wider  history.  The  love  of  man  and 
woman,  of  husband  and  wife,  for  instance,  if  it 
accept  God's  order,  will  know  the  renewal  which 
is  always  a  higher  form.  Cardinal  Bembo,  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  argued  that  "  knowledge  how 
to  love  comes  only  in  ripe  manhood,  that  only  the 
old  really  have  it,  and  their  skill  hes  in  eluding  the 
impulse  of  the  senses,  in  fleeing  from  all  that  is 
vulgar."  The  worthy  Cardinal  has  somewhat 
overlaboured  his  point,  but  the  contention  has  in  it 
a  certain  element  of  truth.  What  it  is  safe  to  say, 
and  most  important  for  us  to  remember,  is  that 
sexual  love  comes  to  us  first  as  a  raw  material 
which  needs  refining.  And  where  a  wholesome 
spiritual  process  is  going  on  within  we  shall  find — 
as  in  the  wider  spheres  we  have  noticed — a  con- 
stant upward  trend  in  our  love.  It  will  carry  more 
things  in  it  than  of  old  ;  have  a  larger  outlook  ;  be 
more  deeply  and  mystically  based. 

A  theme  like  this  lends  itself  inevitably  to  optimism. 
Indeed,  have  we  business  with  anything  else  in 
such  a  world  as  ours,  with  such  laws  underlying  it  ? 
If  our  conditions  are  healthy  we  shall  be,  as  Maeter- 
linck has  it,  "born  afresh  every  morning,  to  a  world 
that  for  ever  awakens  to  the  future."  That  future  ! 
What  has  gone  is  only  a  rough  preliminary  to  it. 
Life  has  hitherto  been  simply  collecting  its  materials, 
sharpening  its  tools,  preparing  the  arena  for  its 
glorious  development.  Already  beyond  the  horizon 
we  see  lifting  itself  the  time  of  which  the  prophets 
spoke ;     towards   which   science   and   religion   are 


RENEWALS  277 

working  ;  for  which  man's  widening  capacity  makes 
ready.  "  Will  it  never  come,"  cries  Lessing,  "  that 
age  of  light  and  purity  of  heart  ?  Never  ?  Let 
me  not  entertain  the  doubt.  Surely  there  will 
some  day  be  reached  that  Eternal  Gospel  promised  in 
the  New  Testament." 

Yes,  assuredly  it  will  come.  If  the  world-pro- 
cesses we  have  been  studying  mean  anything  they 
mean  that.  The  powers  that  have  been  started  in 
the  earth  and  in  the  soul  never  leave  off.  Their 
way  is  towards  ever  larger  fulfilments.  It  was  that 
vision  of  the  future  surely  that  inspired  Milton's 
great  apostrophe,  on  whose  high  note  we  may  well 
conclude  :  "  Come  forth,  out  of  Thy  royal  cham- 
bers, O  Prince  of  all  the  kings  of  the  earth  !  Put  on 
the  visible  robes  of  Thy  imperial  majesty,  take  up 
that  unlimited  sceptre  which  Thy  Almighty  Father 
hath  bequeathed  Thee  ;  for  now  the  voice  of  Thy 
bride  calls  Thee,  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be 
renewed." 


XXXI  • 
On    Being    III 

There  is  a  lively  passage  in  Emerson  in  which  he 
exhorts  us,  by  all  that  is  sacred,  never  to  talk  of  our 
ailments.     In  vain.     The  topic  is  as  perennial  as 
the  weather.     There  are  circles  in  which  nothing 
is  more  popular.     It  is  the  surest  way  to  the  hearts 
of  elderly  ladies  to  be  a  good  Hstener  on  this,  their 
most  engrossing  theme.     And,  pace  Emerson,  the 
subject  is  distinctly  worth  handhng  in  its  season.     It 
draws   upon   all   the   requisites    of   eloquence,    for 
it  is  rooted  in  experience  and  charged  with  feeling. 
And   we   are   in   good   company   in  discussing   it. 
Literature   has   handled   the   topic   in  all  sorts   of 
humours,  and  in  every  one  of  them  has  contrived 
to  be  interesting.     How  we  enjoy   that   story  in 
Aristotle,  so  pat  to  our  own  time,   of  Herodicus 
the   training    master,  who,   falling    into   ill-health, 
invented    thereupon    a    regime    of    gymnastics    so 
complex  and  severe  as  speedily  to  work  and  worry 
himself   and    a    number   of   his    pupils    to  death  ! 
Plato  also  is   distinctly  suggestive  reading  for  the 
invalid    when  he  speaks  of  that   pleasant  practice 
of  physicians    of   his   time  who  "  received  money 
from  the  relatives  of  the  sick  man   or  from  some 

273 


ON  BEING  ILL  279 

enemy  of  his,   and   forthwith  put  him  out  of  the 
way  !  " 

Where  is  there  a  more  entertaining  book  than 
old  Burton's  "  Anatomy  "  !      But  it  is  all  of  ail- 
ments,  physical,   mental   and   moral.     We   feel   a 
new  interest  in  Bacon  when  he  tells  us  he  was 
"  always    puddering     with    physic."     We     prefer 
Richard  Baxter's  account  of  his  diseases  to  much  of 
his  theology.     How  the  picture  of  Knox  holds  us 
where,  old  and  infirm,  he  is  described  as  tottering 
half-fainting  into  the  pulpit  ;    but,  once  set  going 
there,  rising  to  such  energy  as  though  "  ready  to 
ding  the  pulpit  into  blads  ere  he  left  it."     The 
laugh  of  Voltaire,  his  trick  of  treating  everything 
en  badinant,   takes   on  a   new   and   almost   heroic 
aspect  when  we  read  of  his  perpetual  invalidism — 
toujour s  allant  et  souffrant.     "  Ivanhoe  "    becomes 
to  us  an  even  more  wonderful  tale  when  we  remem- 
ber that  Scott  wrote  it  in  the  midst  of  racking  pain. 
We   are  thankful  for   Charles  Lamb's  invalidism, 
for  we  could  not  have  spared  his  essay  on  "  Con- 
valescence."    The  Fathers — to  go  back  on  our  track 
here — are,  in  their  handling  of  theological  themes, 
often  incredibly  stodgy.     We  own  to  a  feeling  of 
rehef  when,  in  turning  their  pages,  we  light  on  a 
passage  like  the  following.  It  is  the  good  Basil  who 
calls  to  us  out  of  his  Cappadocian  diocese  and  out  of 
his  fourth  century  :     "I  have   been  fifty  days  ill, 
hardly  able  to  turn  in  bed,  quite  crushed  mth  pain. 
I  am    trying  all  this  month  the  hot-water  cure." 
Here,  at  least,  out  of  the  Babel  of  theological  hair- 
splittings of  that  distracted  age  we  have  something 
human  that  we  can  understand  and  sympathise  with  ! 


280  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

We  are  interested  in  illness,  where  it  is  intelligently 
observed  and  discoursed  of,  because,  for  one  thing, 
it  offers  us  hfe  from  a  new  aspect.  In  health  we 
are,  most  of  us,  part  of  a  machine,  which  occupies 
our  whole  attention,  and  whose  noisy  revolution 
makes  all  else  inaudible.  In  illness  all  this  is 
changed.  We  have  become  spectators  instead  of 
actors.  The  position  offers  some  salutary  if  sur- 
prising discoveries.  The  first  is  that  the  great 
world  rolls  on  without  us.  A  kindly  world  on  the 
whole,  which  has  welcomed  us,  allowed  us  a  footing  in 
it,  given  us  board  and  lodging,  but  which  now  makes 
plainer  to  us  than  ever  before  that  it  was  here  be- 
fore we  came,  and  will  be  there,  and  none  the  worse, 
when  we  are  gone.  We  get  a  wholesome  sense  of  our 
relative  insignificance.  We  see  the  amusing  folly 
of  the  fly  on  the  wheel  in  giving  itself  airs,  as  though 
it  turned  the  axle.  It  is  worth  being  ill  if  only  to 
get  a  real  grip  of  that  unflattering  but  most  whole- 
some truth. 

There  are  other  things  also  which,  at  such  times, 
become  very  plain  to  us.  We  are  met,  for  instance, 
with  the  question  of  the  apparent  waste  of  power 
which  illness  entails.  Why  cannot  we  always  be  in 
complete  possession  of  ourselves,  of  our  maximum  ? 
One  would  think  a  universe  so  fuU  of  every  kind 
of  force  could  have  spared  us  a  little  more  !  How 
Httle  more  would  have  kept  us  swinging  along  our 
path  of  progress,  without  these  halts  and  down- 
falHngs  and  exasperating  delays  !  Think  of  the 
power  there  is  in  things  :  the  sweep  of  a  star,  the 
force  of  a  Niagara,  the  adamantine  strength  of  a 
Mont  Blanc  !     All  this  outside  us,  vaunting  its  un- 


ON  BEING  ILL  281 

tiring  everlastingness,  while  within  we  are  conscious 
only  of  tottering  invaUdisms,  of  nerves  so  scant  of 
life !  Shall  we  never  catch  this  secret  of  the 
mountains  and  the  seas  ?  Is  their  health  set  as  a 
mock  to  our  ill-health  ? 

This  question,  of  course,  does  not  come  home  to  all 
of  us  with  equal  force.  There  are  people  who  never 
know  what  it  is  to  be  ill,  just  as  others  never  know 
what  it  is  to  be  well.  And  the  tendency  of  things 
is,  let  us  hope,  to  more  strength  and  to  less  in- 
validism. Nature  takes  pains  to  show  that  weakness 
and  suffering  are  not  her  first  intentions  concerning 
us.  We  are  on  the  track  of  our  ailments,  and  see 
from  what  preventible  causes  many  of  them  have 
sprung.  There  is  that  unknown  ancestor  of  ours 
whose  excesses  saddled  his  descendants,  ourselves 
included,  with  perhaps  a  whole  family  of  diseases. 
We  should  so  like  to  have  a  word  with  that  gentle- 
man !  But  not  to  be  too  hard  upon  him.  For 
aught  we  know  his  excess  lay  in  being  too  moral 
instead  of  not  moral  enough.  Perhaps  he  was  an 
ascetic  who  starved  himseK  on  principle,  or  a  student 
who  burnt  too  much  midnight  oil,  or  a  philanthropist 
who  tainted  his  blood  by  visiting  fever-haunted 
hovels.  Probably  he  was  quite  other  than  that, 
but  give  him  at  least  the  benefit  of  the  doubt. 
However  it  be,  the  way  our  human  destinies,  in  the 
matter  of  body  and  brain,  have  been  fixed  for  us 
by  the  doings  of  our  forbears,  without  our  having  a 
say  in  the  matter,  gives  one  curious  reflections.  We 
talk  of  a  Divine  judgment  to  follow  this  life.  But 
is  there  not  room  also  for  a  human  judgment ;  for  a 
meeting  with  those  others  whose  follies  or  whose 


282  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

wisdoms  have  so  largely  fashioned  us,  and  for  a 
general  settling  of  accounts  with  them  ?  We  think 
of  a  good  many  things  we  would  like  to  say  to  our 
ancestors,  and  our  descendants  will  probably  have 
as  many  to  say  to  us. 

But  this  is  a  digression,  and  we  come  back  to 
the  point.  It  is  assuredly  not  the  doings,  good  or 
bad,  of  our  ancestors  ;  not  any  succession  of  fore- 
going slips  or  mischances,  that  offers  the  final 
account  of  our  human  weakness.  The  difference 
between  us  and  Mont  Blanc  in  point  of  robustness 
is  not  explained  that  way.  Our  fragility  is  plainly  an 
arranged  affair.  If  mere  strength,  the  force  that 
defies  the  years  and  that  makes  what  we  call  our 
successes,  had  been  the  one  end  Nature  sought  in  us, 
things  be  sure  would  have  been  ordered  differently. 
With  all  that  force  of  the  universe  behind  her,  it 
would  have  been  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to 
give  us  that.  But  life's  ends  are  deeper  and  subtler. 
What  we  call  our  weakness  is,  it  is  evident,  a 
machinery  working  for  results  that  are  beyond  the 
compass  of  a  Mont  Blanc  or  a  Niagara.  There  are, 
it  seems,  other  strengths  than  that  of  radium  or 
gravitation.  When  we  look  into  it  we  discover, 
indeed,  that  it  is  precisely  out  of  this  under  side  of 
life,  out  of  its  fragility,  its  helplessness,  its  decay, 
its  death,  that  our  soul  has  been  made.  It  is  here, 
and  nowhere  else,  that  man  found  his  trust,  his 
tenderness,  his  sympathy,  his  resignation,  his  feel- 
ing of  dependence,  the  vision  and  sense  of  the 
Unseen,  the  things  in  short  that  make  him  a  spiritual 
being.  We  may  listen  here  to  poor  Oscar  Wilde  : 
"  If  the  world  has  been  built  of  sorrow  it  has  been 


ON  BEING  ILL  283 

built  by  the  hands  of  love,  because  in  no  other 
way  could  the  soul  of  man,  for  whom  the  world  was 
made,  reach  the  full  stature  of  perfection."  Clough, 
who  knew  ill-health  and  an  early  decay,  had  the 
same  assurance  : 

.     Yet  how  little  thou  canst  tell 
How  much  in  thee  is  ill  or  well : 
Nor  for  thy  neighbours,  nor  for  thee. 
Be  sure  was  life  designed  to  be 
A  draught  of  dull  complacency. 

In  a  severe  illness,  when  the  life-force  ebbs  to  a 
low  point.  Nature  rehearses  the  final  scene  for  us, 
and  shows  us  how  easy  a  thing  it  will  be  to  die. 
A  healthy  nature,  that  enjoys  living,  will,  when  the 
time    comes,    enjoy    dying.     We    recognise    it    as 
part  of  the  general  scheme  ;  a  kindly  scheme,  which 
does  not  cease  to  be  kind  in  this  final  incident.     We 
see  with  Browne  in  his  "  Keligio  Medici,"   that  "  we 
are  happier  with  death  than  we  should  have  been 
without  it."      Death  is,  in  fact,  a  trump  card  which 
Nature  holds  for  us,  and  which  she  will  play  in  our 
interest  at  the  right  moment.     And  this  conviction 
comes   upon   us   without   any   complications   from 
theology.     Illness  is  non-theological.     The  sick  man 
knows,  if  no  one  else  does,  that  the  most  heated  dis- 
putes in  this  sphere  have  little  or  no  contact  with 
reality  ;   that  they  are  a  logomachy  with  which  he 
need  not  trouble  himself.     Nature  is  not  much  of 
an  ecclesiastic.     She  brought  us  into  the  world  in 
her    own    homely   fashion,    without   formulae,    and 
will  take  us  out  of  it  under  similar  conditions.   All  the 
same,  she  is  not  mocker,  nor  atheist.     The  space  she 


284  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

clears  for  us  from  the  Church  controversies  leaves  the 
more  room  for  religion.  In  these  hours  of  seclusion, 
shut  off  from  the  roaring  world,  we  find  ourselves 
in  communion  with  the  ultimate  reaHties.  We  are 
in  love  with  the  heights.  We  find  our  kinship  with 
all  who  have  loved,  who  have  aspired,  who  have 
suffered.  Familiar  words  from  the  great  souls  who 
have  known  God  come  back  to  us  with  an  altogether 
ravishing  sweetness.  Our  soul  dwells  in  Holy 
Land.  We  walk  in  Galilee  and  hear  the  Beatitudes  ; 
we  are  admitted  to  Gethsemane  ;  we  learn  the 
secret  of  Calvary.  We  know  all  this  not  simply 
as  history  written  in  a  book,  but  as  the  human 
history  that  is  written  in  our  own  spirit.  Here  is 
the  road  that  souls  have  travelled  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world,  and  where  they  have  found  victory. 

The  illnesses  which  we  write  or  talk  about  are 
illnesses  from  which  we  recover.  The  other  sort 
he  to  be  described  elsewhere  and  in  another  language. 
But  it  is  for  most  a  happy  experience  to  come  back 
again  from  that  weird  by-path  where  we  have 
spent  the  painful  weeks,  and  to  find  ourselves  once 
more  amid  the  joyous  bustle  of  the  main  route. 
Whence,  by  what  mysterious  processes  does  it 
come  to  us,  this  returning  strength  ?  From  rest 
and  from  movement,  from  the  spring  breath,  from 
wind  and  sun,  it  streams  in  upon  us.  Day  by  day 
the  perspective  changes.  The  old  interests,  the  old 
preoccupations  revive  and  resume  their  sway.  We 
are  becoming  once  more  politicians,  controversialists, 
shareholders,  sportsmen,  and  the  hundred  other 
things  that  made  up  the  old  life.  The  world  which 
has  shown  how  easily  it  can  do  without  us  gives  us, 


ON  BEING  ILL  285 

nevertheless,  a  good-humoured  welcome  back.  Best 
of  all,  it  shows  us  the  niche  where  we  can  still  do 
some  of  its  work.  Well  will  it  be  for  us  if,  as  we 
tread  the  old  route,  we  con  diUgently  and  lodge  safe 
in  our  memories  the  signs  written  in  the  earth  and 
sky  of  that  other  bit  of  country  we  have  been 
passing  through.  A  sorry  thing  if,  after  that 
experience,  we  remain  still  without  a  sense  of  the 
true  proportion  of  things  ;  if  we  have  not  learned  to 
estimate  all  the  world  offers  at  its  proper  value  ;  if 
we  have  not  with  Chalmers,  after  the  illness  which 
changed  his  life,  been  made  to  perceive  the  "  little- 
ness of  time  and  the  greatness  of  eternity." 


XXXII 
Character    and    Reputation 

Our  character  is  what  we  are  ;  our  reputation 
is  what  other  people  think  we  are.  A  good  deal 
of  history,  a  large  part  of  life's  whole  tragi-comedy, 
is  made  up  of  our  several  endeavours  to  produce  some 
kind  of  workable  equation  between  these  two 
quantities.  Our  inner  fact  and  our  outer  appear- 
ance !  Incessant  and  most  subtle  is  the  interplay 
of  these  two  ;  some  of  it  conscious,  much  of  it  un- 
conscious ;  all  of  it  vital  to  our  growth  upward  or 
downward.  The  study  of  the  relation  here  set  up  is 
not  always  a  pleasant  one  ;  it  may  lead  easily  to 
cynicism.  Yet  it  is  one  that  not  the  philosopher 
only,  but  every  man  who  cares  for  his  own  inward 
health  needs  in  some  fashion  or  other  to  undertake. 
There  are  a  dozen  different  ways  of  approach. 
Perhaps  the  best  for  us  to  follow  will  be  the  one 
which  comes  closest  to  our  own  practical  life. 

We  have  already  indicated  what  we  mean  by 
character.  But  more  must  now  be  offered  than 
that  too  brief  definition.  It  is  easy  to  say  "character 
is  what  we  are  "  ;  but  then,  what  are  we  ?  Who 
shall  judge  ?  We  remember  the  sprightly  handling 
of  this  problem  in  the  "  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast 

286 


CHARACTER  AND  REPUTATION       287 

Table,"  where  "  the  young  man  named  John  "  is 
made  out  to  be  several  individuals,  according  as  he  is 
viewed  from  within,  from  around,  or  from  above. 
Do  we  know  ourselves  as  we  are  ?  Does  anybody 
know  us  ?  Could  Infinity  take  any  such  measure 
of  us  as  would  be  compatible  with  our  own  finite 
view  ?  What,  too,  of  the  moral  scale  according  to 
which  we  measure  ?  Humanity  has  not  yet  hit  on 
virtue's  common  denominator.  There  are  Indian 
tribes  where  the  women  will  not  accept  the  suitor 
who  has  not  killed  his  man.  The  Thug  is  doubtless 
as  punctilious  as  we  are  on  the  point  of  character, 
but  we  do  not  understand  his  ethics  of  murder. 
People  mix  up  things  in  the  strangest  way.  How 
bewildering  it  is  for  us  to  read  that  calm  deliver- 
ance of  Mahomet  :  "  Two  things  of  the  world  have 
an  attraction  for  me,  women  and  perfumes  ;  but 
I  only  find  pure  happiness  in  prayer."  We  have 
a  similar  sensation  when  in  contact  with  some  of  the 
roystering  spirits  of  the  Renaissance — a  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  for  instance — where  you  have  Catholic  devo- 
tion, prayer,  study  of  the  Scriptures  on  one  page, 
and  a  seduction  or  an  assassination  on  the  next, 
and  all  recounted  with  the  same  gusto  and  sense  of 
approval.  We  come  away  from  studies  of  this  sort 
with  a  confused  notion  that  man  is  half-a-dozen 
different  things,  his  life  pointing,  as  it  seems,  at  the 
same  time,  in  exactly  opposite  directions. 

There  is  a  school  of  moralists  and  litterateurs 
who  have  erected  all  this  into  a  doctrine.  Flaubert 
is  at  the  head  of  a  French  group  who  paint  character 
and  passion  without  any  attempt  at  criticism.  The 
thing  is  so  ;   delineate  it  as  it  is  ;   that  is  all.      The 


288  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

encyclopaedists,  at  an  earlier  period,  worked  on  the 
same  lines.  Says  Helvetius  :  "  All  men  are  what 
they  must  be,  therefore  all  hatred  against  them  is 
unjust.  A  fool  produces  follies  just  as  a  wild 
shrub  produces  sour  berries,  and  to  insult  him  is  to 
reproach  the  oak  for  bearing  acorns  instead  of 
olives."  The  same  idea  evidently  was  in  the  mind 
of  Rousseau  when  he  wrote  his  "  Confessions." 
He  gives  us  there  the  most  revolting  details  without 
a  hint  of  self-blame,  describing  his  book  as  "  a  piece 
of  comparison  for  the  study  of  the  human  heart," 
and  taking  pride  in  its  uniqueness.  "  Et  c'est  la 
seule  qui  existe."  He  was  right  there.  There  has 
been  nothing  like  it  before  or  since. 

But  these  confusions  are,  after  all,  more  apparent 
than  real.  Taking  human  history  as  a  whole,  we 
have  sufficient  evidence  that,  despite  the  stragglers 
and  stragglings,  "  a  God  orders  the  march."  In  all 
hearts,  however  varied  their  present  standards, 
there  is  a  sense  of  better  and  worse.  And  the 
knowledge  of  what  really  is  better  is  steadily  grow- 
ing. The  human  consciousness  is  homogeneous,  and 
the  inspirations  that  reach  its  uppermost  surface 
will  in  the  end  pervade  the  whole.  Restricting  our 
view  here  to  modern  Christendom,  what  we  have 
reached  is  a  moral  standard  whose  validity  is 
recognised  by  all  classes,  by  those  who  transgress  it 
not  less  than  by  those  who  observe  it.  The  all- 
pervading  influence  of  that  standard  is  seen  in  our 
rich  and  subtly  graded  vocabulary  of  praise  and 
blame.  The  average  man  has  a  working  rule  for 
his  daily  use,  in  itself  a  curious  enough  amalgam. 
But  it  is  not  his  only  rule.     Beyond  it,  brought  into 


CHARACTER  AND  REPUTATION       289 

action  for  his  abstract  judgments,  is  a  more  spiritual 
code,  shining  down  as  from  a  high  transcendent 
background.  He  recognises  the  rare  natures,  the 
spiritual  possibilities  realised  in  some  Hves,  and  all 
this  comes  into  his  standard  of  judging.  The  level 
he  has  himself  reached,  and  that  higher  one  discerned 
in  the  distance,  unite  to  throw  into  reUef  the  abyss 
into  which  the  social  transgressor  may  fall.  Hell  is 
still  a  working  EngUsh  word.  It  is  none  too  strong 
for  the  punishment  meted  out  by  society  to  people 
who  break  through,  or  fail  to  live  up  to,  the  accepted 
moral  law. 

Hence,  in  modern  civiUsation,  we  have  the  curious 
spectacle  of  a  subsidiary  morality,  the  morality  not 
so  much  of  character  as  of  reputation.  It  is 
practised  by  people  who,  without  the  instinct  of 
goodness,  have  fully  developed  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  They  have  no  love  for  the  abyss 
though  they  are  closely  akin  to  the  unfortunates 
who  have  got  there.  They  claim  the  awards  of 
respectability  while  secretly  violating  its  laws. 
They  live  "  the  double  life."  A  large  part  of  their 
daily  business  is  the  business  of  concealment,  of 
evasion.  Not  that  concealment  is,  in  itself, 
necessarily  discreditable.  Every  man  conceals  a 
large  part  of  his  Hfe.  There  are  functions  of  it 
which  are  not  for  his  neighbour's  eye.  There  is  an 
innocent  dissimulation  also  which  we  borrow  from 
mother  Nature — herself  the  most  arrant  of  dissimu- 
lators. The  honest  man's  face,  as  well  as  the  rascal's, 
is  at  times  a  mask.  He  needs  on  occasion  to  cover 
up  his  soul,  and  is  glad  of  the  screen  that  has  been 
furnished  him.     But   the   difference   between  him 

19 


290  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

and  this  other  is  that,  were  his  veil  torn  aside,  the 
result  would  be  at  worst  a  hurt  to  his  feelings, 
while  in  the  other  the  result  is  ruin.  There  are  more 
people  in  this  latter  case  to-day  than  one  hkes  to 
think  of.  Their  problem  is  not  how  to  avoid  wrong, 
but  how  to  avoid  being  found  out.  The  men 
who  are  "doing  time"  at  this  moment  at  Dart- 
moor or  Portland  have  outside  a  great  host  of 
counterparts,  who  are  at  large  simply  because  they 
have  been  luckier  or  cleverer  in  their  concealments 
than  their  brother  criminals  under  lock  and  key. 

When  we  study  the  career  of  men  in  this  position 
we  discern  one  of  the  sinister  relations  between 
character  and  reputation.  Swindlers  begin  with  a 
basis  of  character.  The  "  religious  rogue,"  who 
appears  with  such  appalhng  regularity  in  our  modern 
commercial  annals,  starts  usually  as  genuinely 
religious.  His  zeal  combines  with  his  business  apti- 
tude to  secure  him  a  vogue  amongst  his  fellow 
beUevers.  As  his  ventures  prosper  his  ambitions 
enlarge,  while  his  spiritual  fervour  declines.  But 
that  early  devotion,  he  discovers,  now  figures  as  a 
valuable  business  asset,  on  which  he  can  trade.  It 
no  longer  represents  his  character,  but  it  is  still 
his  reputation,  and  he  works  that  for  all  it  is  worth. 
He  patronises  religious  institutions,  though  religious 
beliefs  no  longer  sway  his  conduct.  There  is  no 
more  dangerous  man  in  society,  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  with  his  mixture  of  rehgion  and  business,  is 
rapidly  producing  him  on  two  continents.  Laurence 
Ohphant  said  of  the  financial  crash  in  New  York  in 
1873  "  there  is  scarcely  an  instance  of  a  prominent 
fraudulent  bankrupt  who  has  not  made  a  show  of 


CHARACTER  AND  REPUTATION       291 

piety  the  mask  under  which  he  ensnared  his  victims." 
Recent  history,  both  in  America  and  nearer  home, 
has  added  further  illustrations,  quite  as  deeply 
shaded,  of  the  same  theme. 

We  have  here,  we  say,  a  sinister  and  disastrous 
relation  between  character  and  reputation,  the 
lessons  and  menace  of  which  need,  with  sternest  in- 
sistence, to  be  dealt  with  by  the  preacher  and  the 
moralist  of  to-day.  But  this  happily  is  not  the  only 
nexus  between  the  two.  In  other  directions  character 
and  reputation  work  harmoniously  and  to  great 
results.  Reputation,  to  look  at  it  from  a  new 
aspect,  is  a  man's  past.  It  is  the  thing  he  was 
and  the  work  he  did  in  years  that  are  gone.  The 
world  has  come  to  know  that  past  and  connects  it, 
with  all  of  worth  that  was  there,  with  the  living  man 
now  before  it.  And  here  a  great  law  of  values 
comes  in.  The  man  who  has  done  solid  work  finds 
himself  worth  what  he  is  to-day  plus  all  he  did 
yesterday.  The  artist,  the  writer,  the  preacher, 
the  politician,  as  he  steps  out  this  morning  before 
the  world,  finds  the  thing  he  is  doing  judged  in  a 
light  of  its  own — the  light  that  his  past  has  created. 
It  is  one  of  the  high  rewards  of  later  life,  where 
the  fight  has  been  a  good  one,  to  realise  this  driving 
power  behind  us.  That  section  of  our  life,  flung  off 
as  it  were  from  our  personality,  freed  from  all 
ailments  and  limitations  of  the  present,  has  become 
as  it  were  our  immortal  part,  and  works  for  us  with 
tireless  energy  both  when  we  sleep  and  when  we 
wake. 

The  track  we  have  followed  has,  it  will  be  seen,  all 
the  time  kept  us  in  view  of  one  fact,  that  reputation, 


292  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

at  however  far  a  remove,  is  always  ultimately 
related  to  character,  in  a  way  based  upon  it.  The 
danger  of  our  time,  even  amongst  the  best  men,  is 
however  that  of  striving  for  reputation  even  more 
than  for  character.  The  rewards  of  good  repute 
are  so  great,  the  avenues  to  it,  in  an  advertising  and 
limelight  age  are  so  many,  that  insensibly  a  man  is 
led  to  think  of  his  pose  before  the  public,  rather 
than  of  liimseK  and  his  deed  as  before  God.  How 
good  here  is  that  word  of  the  "  Imitation  "  :  "  No 
man  doth  safely  appear  abroad  but  he  who  gladly 
hideth  himself.  No  man  doth  safely  speak  but  he 
that  willingly  holdeth  his  peace.  No  man  doth 
safely  rule  but  he  that  is  willingly  in  subjection." 

A  word  remains  to  be  said  on  what  is  the  basis  of 
this  whole  theme — character  itself.  Can  we  create 
character,  or  hold  it  in  any  way  under  our  own  con- 
trol ?  It  is  the  master  dilemma,  in  which  life  and 
logic  seem  eternally  at  war.  If  the  necessarians 
are  right  all  our  moral  vocabulary  is  a  delusion. 
Why  blame  a  man  for  what  he  cannot  help  ?  But 
the  vocabulary  is  there,  with  all  it  means.  And 
all  the  fatalist  theori sings  of  a  thousand  years 
have  not  shifted  it  by  a  hair's  breadth.  The  logic 
of  hfe  here  is,  in  fact,  deeper  than  our  own.  Its 
freedom  and  its  necessity  work  at  a  depth  beyond 
our  ken.  Assuredly  the  best  freedom  we  know  is 
that  Divine  necessity  inherent  in  the  quality  of  a 
pure  soul  which  forbids  it  to  go  wrong.  The  work- 
ing of  that  inner  power  is  the  secret  of  religion.  The 
doctrine  of  it,  permanent  amid  all  outward  change, 
is  that  a  man  wins  his  fight  by  linking  himself  to  a 
Something,  a  Someone  higher,  in  whom  his  being 


CHARACTER  AND  REPUTATION       293 

completes  itself.  As  Carlyle  put  it  of  the  Puritans  : 
"  It  is  a  fruitful  kind  of  study,  that  of  men  who  do 
in  very  deed  understand  and  feel  at  all  moments  that 
they  are  in  contact  with  God,  that  the  right  and 
wrong  of  their  little  life  has  extended  itself  into 
Eternity  and  Infinity.  It  is,  at  bottom,  my  religion 
too." 

To  men  of  this  quality  the  relation  of  character 
to  reputation  becomes  quite  simple.  They  think 
everything  of  the  first  and  next  to  nothing  of  the 
second.  Their  vision  of  reality  is  so  clear  that  they 
have  little  enough  care  for  illusions.  Popularity, 
the  opinion  of  the  moment,  the  assent  of  the  current 
orthodoxy,  what  are  these  ?  To  get  one's  piece  of 
work  done  in  this  world,  to  find  the  truth  and  say  it, 
though  the  utterance  lead  to  Gethsemane  and  the 
Cross — this  is  the  concern  of  the  world's  great  souls. 
And  when  they  have  passed,  and  men  catch  at  last 
the  actual  meaning  of  their  life,  they  bow  themselves 
over  the  print  of  what  they  now  discern  to  be  Divine 
footsteps.  They  know  that  once  more  "  God  hath 
visited  His  people." 


XXXIII 
Old    and    New 

Time  is  our  supreme  mystery,  a  thing  invisible, 
intangible,  inexpressible,  and  yet  to  each  one  of  us 
the  intensest  of  realities.  We  cannot  analyse  a 
moment.  No  philosopher  has  solved  the  problem 
of  "  now."  We  believe  in  the  present,  but  can 
never  catch  it.  As  you  try  to  think  it,  it  is  either 
gone  or  yet  to  be.  Time,  which  weaves  itself 
incessantly  into  our  life,  that  connects  itself  with 
our  every  act,  never  shows  us  its  face.  So  mystic 
this  being  of  ours,  where  the  great  forces  that 
weave  it  are  for  ever  invisible  ! 

Let  us  trace  some  of  the  relations  which  time 
creates  for  us,  and  notably  those  of  past  and  present, 
of  old  and  new.  It  is  of  the  first  importance  in  life, 
and  especially  in  the  religious  life,  to  strike  a  true 
balance  here.  There  is,  however,  in  this  matter  to 
be  noted  a  broad  temperamental  difference  between 
men  which  curiously  affects  their  judgments.  There 
are  those  who  think  the  past  of  little  account,  who 
are  all  for  a  clean  slate  and  a  fresh  start.  They  are 
of  the  mind  of  Toland,  who  regarded  the  Fathers 
as  of  no  authority  ;  "  who  thought  as  little  of 
becoming  a  rule  of  faith  to  their  posterity  as  we  to 

294 


OLD  AND  NEW  2n 


sidered  the  dead  done  with,  and  that  the  living  and 
not  these  vanished  ones  should  give  the  law  of  the 
future.  On  the  other  hand,  we  see  men — and 
great  ones — whose  gaze  is  instinctively  backwards. 
Lamb,  in  his  love  of  the  past,  says,  "  I  cannot  make 
these  present  times  present  to  me."  Newman, 
in  the  age  of  science  and  Darwin,  lives  and  teaches 
as  though  all  the  modern  knowledge  were  of  no 
account.  He  has,  it  is  true,  a  theory  of  develop- 
ment, but  it  is  one  that  leads  in  exactly  the  opposite 
direction  from  all  the  modern  tendencies.  Clearly 
one  of  the  first  things  we  have  to  do  in  estimating 
the  value  of  a  man's  teaching  is  to  examine  his 
time-sense — the  temperamental  prepossessions  in 
relation  to  past  versus  present  which  he  brings  to 
his  study  of  facts. 

What,  then,  is  the  true  attitude  to  the  past  ? 
Note,  first  of  all,  that  we  cannot  get  away  from 
it  if  we  would.  A  freshly-born  child  is  the  newest 
of  all  facts.  It  is  this  birth  of  the  young  generations 
that  compels  the  world  forward.  Yet  observe  how 
this  new  fact  is  shaped  and  ruled  by  the  old.  Before 
the  young  spirit  can  begin  with  its  own  special 
thought  it  must  go  to  the  past  for  all  its  tools.  The 
language  it  uses,  the  thought-forms  in  which  its 
growing  intelligence  expresses  itself,  have  been 
shaped  for  it  by  those  who  have  gone  before.  The 
entire  atmosphere  in  which  its  mind  lives  is  their 
creation.  Every  word  in  our  vocabulary  is  a  petrified 
mentality — a  work  of  bygone  thought.  We  live 
to-da}^  in  an  ocean  of  mind ,  an  ocean  fed  by  count- 
less streams  of  tlie  myriad  personalities  who  wrought 


296  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

and  felt  before  we  came.  And  it  is  not  only  the 
past  thought  in  which  we  live.  It  is  also  the  past 
deed.  What  men  did  ages  ago  is  shaping  the 
fortunes  of  you  and  me  just  now.  Gibbon  was 
hardly  extravagant  in  his  statement  that  had  Charles 
Martel  failed  to  win  his  fight  against  the  Arabs  at 
Tours  in  the  eighth  century,  we  might  now  have 
had  Mohammedan  doctors  teaching  the  faith  of 
Islam  at  Oxford.  The  millions  of  Europe  are  at  this 
hour  influenced  in  a  thousand  ways  by  the  issue  of 
Waterloo.  How  different  the  France,  the  Germany, 
the  Italy,  the  England  of  to-day  had  Napoleon  won  ! 
We  are,  it  is  evident,  under  a  cosmic  conservatism 
which  permits  no  rash  iconoclasms.  The  old  never 
dies.  Every  scrap  of  it  is  used  in  the  making  of 
the  new. 

Let  us  now  consider  this  new.  That  imperious 
law  of  things  by  which,  as  we  have  seen,  we  are  bound 
to  the  old,  compels  us,  under  the  same  necessity, 
constantly  to  the  new.  It  is  useless  to  exclaim 
against  novelties.  The  mind  insists  upon  them. 
Let  the  greatest  stickler  for  things  as  they  are, 
addressing  the  most  conservative  audience  in  the 
world,  continue,  in  pulpit  or  elsewhere,  to  give 
exactly  the  same  views  in  exactly  the  same  phrases, 
and  he  would  bore  his  supporters  to  death.  The 
mind,  by  its  very  structure,  insists  upon  the  new 
fact,  the  new  presentation.  Our  moral  constitution 
tells  the  same  story.  It  is  one  of  the  surest  maxims 
of  morals  that  a  mere  practice  of  the  old  is  the  death 
of  virtue.  It  is  always  in  a  pressing  on  from 
what  we  are  to  something  beyond  that  goodness 
exists.     As  the  ancient  saying  has  it  :      "  He  who 


OLD  AND  NEW  297 

ceases  to  be  better  ceases  to  be  good."  There  is 
no  standing  still  in  ethic.  It  is  upward  or  down- 
ward. "  The  innermost  essence  of  morality,"  says 
Wundt,  "is  in  ceaseless,  never-ending  effort."  It 
is  the  same  with  religious  experience.  The  most 
stringent  orthodoxy  is  here  at  one  with  the  widest 
liberaHsm.  They  are  alike  in  their  insistence  that 
no  man,  in  this  sphere,  can  live  on  his  past.  That 
he  had  spiritual  raptures,  ecstasies,  heaven's  own 
assurances  ten  years  ago,  forms,  they  will  unite  in 
telling  him,  no  sufficiency  for  to-day.  Religious 
conservatism  does  not  extend  to  living  on  yester- 
day's manna. 

This  inner  compulsion  to  the  new,  derived  from 
our  mental  and  moral  constitution,  is,  we  further 
discover,  in  exact  accord  with  our  position  in  the 
universe.  We  stand  on  the  border  line  of  two  realms, 
the  known  and  the  unknown.  The  first,  vast  as  it 
may  seem,  is,  as  compared  with  the  second,  a  mere 
speck  of  territory.  We  are  like  colonists  encamped 
on  the  edge  of  a  continent,  w^ho  have  explored  a 
few  miles  here  and  there,  leaving  the  immeasur- 
able vastness  behind  as  yet  untouched.  To  beings 
made  as  we  are  there  could  not  be  a  more  fascinating 
position.  It  is  one  that  stirs,  and  evidently  was 
meant  to  stir,  every  faculty  in  us  ;  that  fires  our 
whole  nature  with  the  desire  to  know.  That 
continent  of  truth  is  frankly  offered  us  for  explora- 
tion. We  are  invited  to  go  up  and  possess  the  land. 
We  discern  nowhere  a  warning  against  trespassers. 
And  continually,  as  fresh  discoveries  are  made 
there,  as  fresh  treasure-trove  of  fact  is  brought  in 
from  its  recesses,  man  perceives  a  corresponding 


298  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

change  in  himself.  As  the  universe  grows  larger 
to  him  he  himself  grows  larger  ;  the  new  facts 
are  new  forces  which  henceforth  reside  and  work 
in  him.  For  the  central  thing  about  humanity  is 
that  it  is  always  in  the  making.  From  that 
territory  of  the  unknown  there  is  ever  flowing  in 
upon  us  the  new  fact,  the  new  force  that  is  fashion- 
ing us  into  something  other  and  higher  than  we 
were. 

We  have  no  need  to  be  afraid  of  the  new.  After 
all,  it  is  but  a  relative  term,  a  term  which  exhibits 
simply  our  limitations,  our  ignorance.  The  dis- 
coveries that  have  from  time  to  time  so  startled 
our  predecessor  ; — the  Copernican  astronomy  that 
upset  his  ideas  of  heaven  and  earth  ;  the  geologic 
facts  that  destroyed  his  theory  of  creation  ;  the 
Biblical  studies  that  struck  so  on  his  views  of 
inspiration  and  revelation,  were  only  startling 
because  of  the  kind  of  mind  they  fell  upon.  We  are 
such  naive,  raw,  immature  children  of  the  universe. 
To  higher  intelligences  these  revolutionary  tidings 
were  the  stalest  of  commonplaces.  Our  new  facts 
are  really  as  old  as  the  world.  God,  be  sure,  knew 
them  all  along.  The  confusion  they  cause  in  us  is 
just  a  process  in  our  education.  It  is  a  knocking 
down  preliminary  to  building  us  out  on  a  greater 
scale.  The  universe  will  not  cramp  itself  to  meet 
our  tiny  dimensions.  It  is  we  who  must  grow  to 
meet  its  size. 

All  nature  is  in  a  conspiracy  to  urge  us  to  the  new. 
As  Plato  says  in  the  Symposium  :  "  All  men  are 
bringing  to  birth  in  their  bodies  and  in  their  souls." 
And  birth  is  the  greatest  of  innovators.     Men  can- 


OLD  AND  NEW  299 

not  provide  against  revolutions  so  long    as  there 
is  a  child  in  arms. 

A  child,  more  than  all  other  gifts 

That  earth  can  offer  to  declining  man, 

Brings  hope  with  it  and  forward-looking  thoughts. 

Conservatism  may  build  its  creedwalls  heaven  high  ; 
may  fortify  itself  with  Councils  and  with  pre- 
cedents. But  unless  it  have  truth  on  its  side,  creed 
and  Council  offer  no  defence  against  the  new  mind 
that  is  here.  The  fresh  generation  brings  its  own  way 
of  seeing,  its  own  way  of  determining.  And 
humanity,  in  the  forward  march  to  which  it  is  thus 
compelled,  finds  no  way  backwards.  It  is  on,  and 
ever  on.  There  is  something  awe-inspiring,  as  of  the 
presence  of  manifest  Divinity,  in  this  constant 
mental  action  of  the  race.  As  in  the  body,  where 
an  unceasing  process  works  whereby  new  material  is 
added  and  the  old  carried  away,  so  it  is  in  the  soul. 
Down  in  the  depths  of  the  general  consciousness 
room  is  ever  being  made  for  the  reception  of  fresh 
truths.  No  vacuum  is  permitted  there.  Behind 
the  decay  of  an  outworn  belief  we  behold  the  fresh 
sprout  of  the  larger  conception  which  is  to  succeed. 
It  is  the  view  of  this  regular,  concerted  move- 
ment that  gives  such  a  significance  to  history. 
Schopenhauer  was  never  further  from  the  point  than 
when,  in  his  contemptuous  way,  he  speaks  of  history 
as  a  mere  string  of  disconnected  facts.  The  pro- 
phets of  the  race  have  never  believed  that.  They 
have  recognised  history  as  the  unrolling  of  a  scheme. 
Whatever  their  view  of  a  golden  age  behind,  they 
have  always  discerned  one  in  front,     They   have 


300  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

known  that  "  a  God  orders  the  march,"  and  that  the 
march  is  toward  a  Promised  Land.  That  is  the 
meaning  of  ideals — ideals  which,  as  Fouillee  puts  it, 
"  are  but  the  deepest  sense  and  anticipation  of  future 
reaUty."  Yet,  how  slow  the  movement !  The 
Leader  plainly  is  not  in  a  hurry.  Our  eyesight  so 
far  outruns  our  footwork.  Long  centuries  ago  Lucan 
in  his  "  Pharsalia  "  predicted  the  time  of  universal 
peace,  when,  "  with  his  weapons  thrown  aside,  man 
should  learn  everywhere  to  love  his  fellow."  What 
slaughters,  hatings,  deliriums  of  miUtarism  since  ! 
Yet  that  reign  of  peace  and  brotherhood  is  as  surely 
coming  as  is  the  rising  of  to-morrow's  sun.  There 
is  no  chance  in  the  future.  Chance  is  only  another 
word  for  our  ignorance.  Could  we  only  see  far 
enough  and  clear  enough  the  new  heaven  and  new 
earth  would  be  as  visible  to  us  as  the  stars  on  a 
cloudless  night. 

A  theme  like  this  is  full  of  practical  lessons.  There 
is  an  outstanding  one  for  the  religious  teacher.  If 
he  knows  his  ground  he  will  see  himself  as  for  one 
thing,  a  constant  mediator  between  the  old  and  the 
new.  He  will  never  undervalue  the  old.  He  will 
in  his  treatment  of  it  imitate  Nature,  which  makes 
its  new  structures  out  of  the  old  materials.  Even 
where  error  has  to  be  uprooted  he  will,  as  Condorcet 
so  well  puts  it,  act  like  the  skilled  architect  who  in 
destroying  a  building,  "  sets  about  its  demolition  in 
such  a  way  as  to  prevent  its  fall  from  being  danger- 
ous." He  will  teach  the  young  to  reverence  the 
past,  and  the  aged  to  reverence  the  future.  While 
accepting  new  forms  of  presentation  where  truth 
compels,  he  will  show  how  the  older  form  contained 


OLD  AND  NEW  301 

in  its  own  way  the  full  religious  reality.  He  will 
show  how  from  one  perishable  vessel  to  another  that 
Divine  reality  is  in  each  age  transferred,  losing  in 
the  movement  no  atom  of  its  priceless  essence. 

Believing  this  we  find  a  further  and  final  lesson,  the 
lesson  of  our  true  attitude  towards  the  future.  It  is 
that,  surely,  of  victorious  faith,  and  of  the  love  that 
casteth  out  fear.  We  may  say  indeed  with  Thoreau 
that  "  nothing  is  so  much  to  be  feared  as  fear." 
With  a  sure  hold  on  God  we  know  nothing  of  acci- 
dents. If  human  observation  and  the  long  experi- 
ence of  the  ages  are  good  for  anything  they  have 
proved  beyond  a  doubt  that  we  are  in  a  world  of 
spiritual  law,  a  world  where  moral  and  inner  values 
are  the  chief  products,  and  where  the  whole  tendency 
is  toward  their  complete  realisation  and  expression. 
We  are  in  that  movement,  partakers  of  its  glorious 
promise.  To  life's  outer  husk — our  body,  our 
circumstance — a  thousand  things  may  hap^Den. 
But  none  of  these  can  touch  our  centre.  At  ut- 
most they  can  only  drive  us  inward  and  closer  to  it. 
Quis  separabit  ?  Neither  life  nor  death  can  bar 
us  from  the  love  of  God. 


XXXIV 
Remainders 

We  are  apt  to  think  ill  of  remainders.  We  regard 
them  as  the  fag-ends  and  soiled  stock  of  Ufe, 
a  refuse  to  be  shovelled  away  or  jobbed  off  at 
half-price.  But  there  is  no  greater  mistake.  We 
want  a  new  doctrine  and  practice  of  remainders. 
Life  is  full  of  them,  and  you  might  found  almost 
the  entire  art  of  living  on  their  proper  manage- 
ment. 

Remainders  represent  losses,  subtractions.  We 
could  conceive  of  life  as  built  on  a  plan  which 
excluded  such  things  ;  which  was  a  perpetual  ful- 
ness, where  all  we  had  was  secured  to  us,  and  where 
the  only  change  was  increase.  But  that  is  not  how 
matters  have  been  arranged.  We  are  surrounded 
with  what  seem  robber  forces  that  ruthlessly  snatch 
away  our  cherished  possessions.  We  grow  older, 
and  each  year  sees  a  new  depletion  of  our  shrinking 
time-allowance.  And  with  the  years  our  powers 
weaken  and  leave  us.  The  once  President  of  the 
Alpine  Club  walks  with  a  stick  or  takes  to  a  Bath 
chair.  Our  friends  one  after  another  drop  away. 
Age   has   been   described   as   a   losing   game,   and 

302 


REMAINDERS  303 

certainly  its  losses  are  enormous.  As  Dryden  so 
bitterly  puts  it  : 

Fool'd  with  hope  men  favour  the  deceit ; 
Trust  on  and  think  to-morrow  will  repay  ; 
To-morrow's  falser  than  the  former  day  ; 
Lies  worse,  and  wliile  it  says  we  shall  be  blest 
With  some  new  joys,  cuts  off  what  we  possesst. 
Strange  cozenage ! 

We  should  not  accept  that  as  a  fair  description,  for 
it  takes  no  notice  of  the  gains  in  the  account.  Cozen- 
age is  not  the  word.  Life  is  rather  a  perpetual 
exchange.  It  is  a  ceaseless  traffic,  an  eternal  coming 
and  going.  And  in  this  movement  the  problem 
set  us  all  every  morning  is  an  equation  between 
what  is  here  and  what  is  gone.  Our  life's  victory  or 
defeat  will  be  found  to  depend  to  a  quite  extra- 
ordinary degree  on  our  daily  management  of  this 
last — our  management,  that  is,  of  what  is  left. 

It  is  by  their  handling  of  remainders  that  great 
men  have  best  signahsed  their  greatness.  War  is 
fuU  of  that  story.  It  is  when  his  forces  have  been 
decimated  and  their  spirits  broken  by  disaster  that 
again  and  again  the  genius  of  a  commander  in 
handUng  his  remnant  has  gloriously  saved  the 
situation.  At  Poitiers  our  Black  Prince,  with  his 
handful  of  men,  ragged,  famished,  weary  with 
incessant  marches,  and  hemmed  in  by  a  full-fed 
enemy  five  times  their  number,  so  managed  his 
handful  as  to  turn  what  seemed  certain  disaster 
into  the  most  resounding  of  victories.  For  three- 
quarters  of  his  career  William  of  Orange  was  the 
head  of  a  forlorn  hope — forlornest  of   hopes,  as  it 


304  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

seemed.  But  the  end  again  was  victory.  At 
Marston  Moor  the  day  seemed  altogether  lost  after 
the  first  round ;  the  Parliament  troops  every- 
where broken  and  fleeing,  except  in  one  direc- 
tion, where  stood  Noll  Cromwell  and  his  Ironsides, 
calmly  singing  a  psalm.  That  their  comrades  had 
given  up  the  day  as  lost  seemed  to  them  no  argu- 
ment whatever,  or  if  argument,  then  one  only 
for  more  strenuous  fighting.  Here  was  a  remainder 
that  counted,  as  Rupert  and  his  Cavaliers  found 
to  their  cost.  We  think  of  Washington  at  Valley 
Forge  ;  of  Napoleon  at  Marengo,  his  troops  three- 
parts  beaten,  and  then,  when  all  seemed  over, 
winning  with  the  remaining  quarter.  Later  on  it 
was  the  same  story  with  his  great  rival  at  Waterloo. 
Was  there  ever  a  closer  shave  ?  The  allies  began  by 
being  utterly  beaten  and  dispersed.  Wellington's 
own  story,  as  he  gave  it  to  gossip  Creevey  at  Brussels, 
after  the  fight,  is  surely  the  briefest  and  raciest 
battle  story  extant.  "  It  has  been  the  nearest 
run  thing  you  ever  saw  in  your  life.  Blucher  lost 
fourteen  thousand  men  on  Friday  night,  and  got  so 
d — y  licked  that  I  could  not  find  him  on  Saturday 
morning."  It  was  a  remainder  he  fought  with  on 
the  fateful  day,  with  what  result  we  know. 

In  our  own  lives  we  have  a  question  day  by  day 
of  personal  remainders.  What  is  the  argument  we 
hold  with  our  losses  ?  There  is  only  one  good  way 
here — the  way  of  concentrating  on  what  is  left. 
Nothing  is  nobler  in  history  than  the  examples 
it  offers  of  this  form  of  courage.  The  spectacle  of 
Fawcett,  falling  blind  in  his  young  manhood  and 
determining  that  the  affliction  should  not  alter  or 


REMAINDERS  305 

maim  his  career,  living  in  spite  of  it  the  strenuous 
life,  filling  the  hours  with  hard  work  and 
sunny  play,  rising  to  highest  things  in  service  and 
achievement,  forms,  to  our  thinking,  one  of  the 
finest  object-lessons  the  nineteenth  century  has  to 
offer.  We  think,  too,  of  that  greater  figure  behind, 
the  blind  poet  of  the  Commonwealth,  strong  in  the 
same  magnificent  resolve  : 

Yet  I  argue  not 
Against  Heaven's  hand  or  will,  nor  bate  a  jot 
Of  heart  or  hope  ;    but  still  bear  up  and  steer 
Right  onward 

Surely  there  is  nothing  more  pathetic  in  literature 
than  the  lines,  in  his  "  Second  Defence  of  the  English 
People,"  in  which  Milton  defends  himself  against 
the  abominable  insinuation  of  Salmasius  that  his 
blindness  was  a  Divine  judgment  for  his  sins.  "  I 
call  Thee,  0  God,  the  searcher  of  hearts,  to  witness 
that  I  am  not  conscious  either  in  the  more  early  or 
in  the  later  periods  of  my  life  of  having  committed 
any  enormity  which  might  deservedly  have  marked 
me  out  as  fit  subject  for  such  a  calamitous  visitation. 
.  .  .  .  When  I  was  publicly  solicited  to  write  a 
reply  to  the  Defence  of  the  royal  cause,  when  I  had 
to  contend  with  the  pressure  of  sickness,  and  wdth  the 
apprehension  of  soon  losing  the  sight  of  my  remain- 
ing eye,  and  when  my  medical  attendants  clearly 
announced,  that  if  I  did  engage  in  the  work  it 
would  be  irreparably  lost,  their  premonitions  caused 
no  hesitation  and  inspired  no  dismay.  .  .  .  My 
resolution  was  unshaken,  though  the  alternative 
was  either  the  loss  of  my  sight  or  the  desertion  of 
my  duty." 

20 


306  OUR  CITY  OP  GOD 

Here,  indeed,  is  the  great  way  of  living,  and  it  is 
open  to  us  all.  There  are  few  severer  tests  than 
physical  defect,  but  it  is  only  small  souls  that  sink 
under  them.  The  large  nature  makes  of  them 
stepping-stones.  It  is.  for  instance,  a  reflection 
full  of  optimism  to  note  how  men  of  fewest  inches, 
deprived  of  that  element  of  power  which  comes  from 
commanding  stature,  have,  spite  the  lack,  by  sheer 
energy  of  mind,  become  the  great  swayers  of  destiny. 
What  a  tiny  man  was  Lord  John  Russell  !  Yet  he 
led  the  House  of  Commons,  and  was  Prime  Minister 
of  England.  Napoleon  was  almost  a  dwarf.  Agesilaus 
and  Alexander  were  under  the  middle  height.  In 
other  regions  of  influence  note  Montaigne,  Spenser, 
Barrow,  Pope,  Steele,  Watts,  Wesley,  all  meagre 
of  body.  How  they  bulk  to-day  in  the  world  of 
thought  and  deed  !  Nor,  when  we  are  of  the  right 
temper,  will  the  advance  of  years,  with  whatso- 
ever physical  shearings  and  loppings  it  may  bring, 
put  us  off  from  the  business  of  inner  progress.  Cato 
learned  Greek  at  sixty  ;  it  was  at  the  same  age 
Robert  Hall  took  up  Italian,  that  he  might  read 
Dante.  In  his  eightieth  year  Michael  Angelo, 
walking  in  Rome,  on  being  asked  the  reason  of 
his  expedition,  replied,  "  That  I  may  learn  some- 
thing." 

But  life  has  other  problems  for  us  than  those  of 
physical  defect,  problems  where  the  handling  of 
remainders  is  not  less  difficult  and  not  less  vital. 
Domestic  happiness  or  misery  ;  our  entire  social 
contact,  with  all  it  brings  to  us  of  inner  growth  or 
decay,  are  here  in  question.  A  man  and  woman 
joined  in  marriage  discover,  on  the  farther  side  of 


REMAINDERS  307 

the  great  venture,  that  their  dreams  of  each  other 
and  what  their  union  would  bring  them,  were  partly 
illusions.  Honeymoons  are  the  queerest  of  histories, 
at  times  the  most  tragical.  A  high,  impression- 
able nature  finds  in  the  closer  intimacy  a  lack,  a 
failure  of  response  to  its  own  highest.  The  union 
is  not  the  complete,  the  perfect  thing  that  was 
imagined.  Or  it  may  be  worse  than  that.  What 
then  ?  What  if  it  be  the  w^orst  ?  Shall  despair 
be  the  attitude  ?  That  would  mean  another  union, 
the  union  of  cowardice  and  folly.  For  in  what  is 
left  there  is  room  always  for  a  brave  soul.  Always 
is  there  a  remainder  to  work  on,  a  remainder  in 
yourself  and  in  your  companion.  Keeping  steadily 
to  that ;  shutting  the  eye  to  all  else  ;  concentrating  on 
this  residue  of  good  all  the  energy  of  love  and  all  the 
patience  of  hope  ;  here  is  the  road— straight  and 
narrow  may  be,  demon-haunted,  skirting  at  a 
dozen  places  the  precipice — which,  nevertheless, 
persevered  in,  will  bring  you  through  to  victory. 

There  is  no  better  reading  than  the  remnant 
histories.  And  they  meet  us  everywhere.  The 
Church  of  England  has  had  hardly  a  brighter 
ornament  than  "  holy  George  Herbert."  But  the 
author  of  "  The  Temple "  and  "  The  Country 
Parson  "  entered  the  ministry  in  the  first  instance 
as  a  kind  of  remainder.  He  had  planned  for  him- 
self the  life  of  the  court  and  of  diplomacy.  It  was 
only  when  the  death  of  James  I,  and  his  patron  the 
Duke  of  Richmond  destroyed  his  hopes  of  prefer- 
ment that  he  thought  of  taking  Orders.  We  know 
how  this  pis  alter  became  the  startii^g-point  of  a 
consuming  spiritual  passion,  and  gave  Anglicanism 


308  OUR  CITY  OF  GOD 

one  of  its  closest  approaches  to  sainthood.  Think- 
ing of  Herbert  reminds  us  of  his  contemporary, 
Hooker,  who,  trapped  into  a  marriage  with  a 
shrew,  which  lost  him  Oxford,  quietude  and,  as  it 
seemed,  almost  everything  else,  went  on  calmly 
working  his  remainder  ;  in  his  country  parish  dehght 
ing  "  to  see  God's  blessings  spring  out  of  the  earth," 
and  there  and  elsewhere  toiUng  on  at  the  mighty 
book  which  was  to  estabhsh  his  fame  for  ever. 
Wesley  marries  a  termagant  with  dynamite 
enough  in  her  to  wreck  half  a  dozen  careers.  But 
Wesley  refuses  to  be  wrecked.  If  domestic  peace  is 
gone,  his  apostleship  is  left  him,  and  he  makes 
something  of  that ! 

We  have  so  far  dealt  with  remainders  that  are 
such  by  mere  subtraction.  This  and  that  have  been 
taken  from  us,  or  have  been  kept  out  of  our  reach, 
and  the  problem  has  been  to  do  our  best  without 
them.  But  there  are  remainders  of  a  different  and 
subtler  order,  remainders  which  are  deposits.  In 
chemistry  it  is  the  remainder  that  counts.  All  this 
mass  of  pitchblende  rock,  all  these  processes  of 
crushing  and  grinding,  of  refining  and  solution,  for 
the  sake  of  so  tiny  a  speck  of  radium  that  emerges 
at  the  end  !  Human  life  is  also  a  chemistry,  with 
processes  that  are  strangely  similar.  Our  experi- 
ences, when  we  are  through  with  them,  are  not  done 
with.  Their  chief  significance,  one  comes  to  think, 
is  in  the  deposits  they  leave.  What  queer  re- 
mainders drop,  as  final  result,  from  our  daily  doings  ! 
How  comes  it  that  an  orgie  leaves  this  precise  taste 
in  the  mouth  the  day  after  ?  Singular,  when  we 
think   of  it !     The  flavour  is  clearly   not   of  the 


REMAINDERS  309 

man's  own  willing.  Freewill  has  gone  into  the 
choice  of  his  pleasures,  but  there  is  no  freewill  in  the 
deposit  from  them. 

There  is,  indeed,  nothing  more  awesome,  yet  at 
the  same  time  more  loftily  inspiring,  than  this 
question  of  remainders,  where  also  they  are  extracts. 
We  touch  here  so  manifestly  on  a  Will  outside  our 
own.  When  we  note  the  sense  of  degradation 
yielded — with  the  certainty  of  a  chemical  result — 
by  certain  courses,  and  the  inner  exaltation,  the  high 
sense  of  achievement  and  inner  progress  which 
folloAV  upon  others,  there  is  no  escaping  the  con- 
clusion that  here  we  stand  on  the  confines  of  a 
spiritual  kingdom  whose  rule  it  is  impossible  to 
escape,  a  kingdom  which  includes  every  soul  of  us 
in  its  purpose,  a  purpose  whose  end  is  not  yet. 
Life  itself,  then,  it  seems,  is  a  process,  carried  on  in 
its  turn  for  the  extract  it  will  yield.  The  process  is 
what  we  are  here  and  now.  The  extract  is  what  we 
shall  be  in  the  world  invisible. 


The   End. 


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OTHER    WORKS 
BY    J.     BRIERLEY,     B.A. 


RELIGION    AND    EXPERIENCE 

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estabUshed  religion  rests,  it  is  seen,  ultimately  on  experience.  hs 
dodrines  go  back  finally  to  what  was  seen  and  felt  by  its  Founder 
and  His  followers.  But  what  was  the  evidential  value  of  this 
experience  of  theirs,  considered  as  the  groundwork  of  a  religion  ? 
For  answer  the  writer  develops  a  psychology  of  experience  and 
shows  its  application  to  the  main  positions  of  Christianity.  Having 
dealt  first,  in  this  way,  with  the  central  question,  he  proceeds,  in 
succeeding  chapters,  to  apply  his  philosophy  of  experience  to  some 
of  the  leading  problems  of  present-day  life  and  religion. 

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THE    ETERNAL    RELIGION 

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An  exposition  of  religion  as  a  principle  and  a  history,  hs 
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in  historical  personalities  ;  and  that  the  progress  both  of  the  ideas 
and  of  the  personalities  has  reached  its  highest  point  in  Christianity. 
The  exposition  includes  some  of  the  leading  positions  of  Christianity, 
together  with  application  of  its  principles  to  prominent  phases  of 
modern  life. 

"  The  most  vigorous  contribution  that  ]Mr.  Brierley  has 
made  to  the  religious  thought  of  the  day." 

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STUDIES    OF    THE    SOUL 

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Dr.  Houton  says  : — "  I  prefer  this  book  to  the  best- 
written  books  I  have  Ughted  on  for  a  year  past." 

"  It  is  one  of  the  freshest  books  we  have  read  for  a  long 
time." — Daihj  Mail. 

"  The  supreme  charm  of  the  book  is  not  the  wealth  of 
fine  sayings,  gathered  together  from  so  many  sources 
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insight,  his  humour,  his  acute  criticisms,  and,  above  all, 
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OURSELVES     AND    THE    UNIVERSE 

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set  in  the  framework  of  that  new  Universe  which 
modern  research  has  opened  to  us. 

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marked,  learned,  and  inwardly  digested  during  the  next 
few  years,  for  the  book  is  essentially  one  of  our  time." 

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the  fads  of  the  common  life,  properly  considered, 
furnish  the  material  out  of  which  the  religious  thought- 
^rudure  of  the  future  will  be  con^ruded. 


"  A  book  which  every  minister  ought  to  possess." 

— British   Weekly. 

"  An  invaluable  book,  sparkling  with  gems,  every  page 
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illustration." — Silvester  Horne  in  The  Christian  World. 


PROBLEMS     OF     LIVING 

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In  this  volume  the  position  taken  is  that  the 
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to  go  for  its  answer  to  the  sphere  of  the  invisible.  Its 
solution  is  finally  a  religious  one. 

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"  These  beautiful  and  charming  essays." 

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